sometimes i honestly don't think i'll live past my 20s. sometimes i honestly don't want to. like, i want to be in a band, or i want to be a body modification artist. those are my dreams, and they are stupid, but i want to change people's lives. i want to make them feel better. but i know that in reality, i'm probably not going to do either of those things. i will probably have an office job that i will always say is temporary, but i will stick with for years and years. i will probably marry someone, not because i live them, but because they stuck around. i will probably be stuck when i'm 50 in a marriage with someone i tolerate in a job i don't like, wondering what the hell happened.

and i don't want to live in that world. i don't want to live that life, because if i'm going to be miserable, what is the fucking point? why the fuck am i alive right now? why do i even fucking bother? i don't like it here, i don't want to be here, i don't like who i am, i just don't. and i know that suicide is supposed to be "the coward's way out" but me being a coward? that's not exactly a recent discovery.

i'm just so fucking tired and i keep on trying to find something to help me be okay and i keep on coming up short.

i miss the rain.

i hate being sick. i know that's kind of an obvious statement, but goddamnit, i wanna complain. i hate that everything hurts and i can't breathe properly and i'm tired, but every time i try to sleep, i can't stop coughing. and i hate that every time i try to do something outlandish like move slightly or breathe, i feel like i'm about to pass out. my voice is shot to shit, and i feel like something crawled into my throat and died, which is more than a little unsettling, especially considering the fact that i don't eat meat. i'm so frustrated, i could scream. except for the part where i actually can't because my voice sounds like the rasp of the wind through dead leaves in autumn. hey, why don't murderers kill more people who are sick? they're too weak to fight back, they can't call for help, it's perfect!

so, yeah. i'm sick. i'm not really angry about it anymore. i get sick incredibly often, and it sucks, but i live with it. the walls keep on being in places other than where they are supposed to be. they are very sneaky. the psychopathic brain children are going off the fucking hook. i can't function correctly- they live for this shit. i'm so dizzy. and i'm so tired, but i can't fucking sleep.

you know, it's weird. they've been having times lately where they won't say anything for a long while, and i get really scared that i won't be able to hear them again. i know it's wacky. they want to kill me. well, maybe not me in particular, but they want to kill, and i'm the closest one around. they want to hurt me, but i still want them. when they go, i sit in my closet, in the dark, begging them to come back. it's so quiet without them, and i get so goddamned lonely. i don't like being around people, they scare me, but i'm so lonely.

usually, i can't see them. i can just hear them, but sometimes there will be a sort of presence, a kind of shadow, almost there. and i can feel them. last night i was having a conversation with Seven. I was having a bad day, and i was crying. she was at the end of my bed, just staring at me. after a while, i went to lay down and sleep. Seven started talking.

S: are you okay?
me: why are you asking?
S: i wanna hear you say it.
me: no. i'm not okay. happy now?
S: yes.
me: whoopdy fucking do
S: i could kill you tonight.
me: yup.
S: i could make you kill yourself.
me: undoubtedly.
S: but i won't.
me: why not?
S: you're not happy. i want you to be happy when i kill you.
me: thanks. 'night, Seven.
S: goodnight Frankenstein.
then i turned out the lights, and i swear the darkness hugged me. they care. they have a strange way of showing it, but they care.


xoxo
clara

WARNING: This is incredibly sweary, so if that sort of thing offends you, you might not want to read this.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MY FUCKING IMMUNE SYSTEM. I JUST GOT OVER A COLD, I JUST FUCKING GOT OVER A COLD NOT TEN FUCKING DAYS AGO. WHAT IS THIS SORE THROAT STUFFY SINUS BULLSHIT? I'LL TELL YOU WHAT IT IS: A BIG OLD GLASS OF FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER. I DRESS WARMLY, I SLEEP, I STAY HYDRATED AND WHAT DO I GET? A MOTHERFUCKING SHITTY IMMUNE SYSTEM. NOW I'M CHUGGING JUICE AND POPPING AIRBORNE LIKE THEY'RE CIRCUS PEANUTS. AND JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS. "What did Santa bring you?" BRONCHITIS. MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS, BITCH. SUCK MY CLIT YOU PENGUIN FUCKING DEEP FRIED SHIT NUGGET. SHUT YOUR DICK HOLSTER AND GO SODOMIZE RUDOLPH, YOU JELLY-BELLIED COCK SLAPPER. COME ON IN TONIGHT CUZ I'VE GOT A SHOTGUN WAITING WITH YOUR NAME ON IT.

I'M GONNA GO MAKE SHORTBREAD NOW.

FUCKING FUCKITY BYE.

so earlier today, shortly after i wrote the last post, my girlfriend dumped me.

i wish i were a fucking ghost. i wish i didn't really have to exist. i could just sit and watch and no one would notice me unless i wanted them to.

i can't stop thinking about her smile. i know it's cliche, but she had a really pretty smile. her teeth weren't perfectly straight, and they're really cute. and her eyes would crinkle up at the corners.

she had this piercing above her lip, and when she was concentrating, she would with it with her tongue.

i don't really think we were ever in love, not really, but my heart would beat faster whenever she looked at me, and god, we could have been.

it's not so much that we were so good for each other. we were unhealthy. she was high all the time, and i didn't know how to talk to her. it's that we could have been better. there were so many things that we never got to do. that's why i'm crying.

i gained weight again, but i'm not really hungry anymore.

i just want to die.

i wish i were a ghost.

I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams...

My sister came home for the winter holidays yesterday. Actually, screw it. She came for Christmas. It's Christmas. We celebrate Christmas. I'm not sure why, none of us are religious, but we do. I think it's out of habit. My mother's family is Anglican, and my father grew up Episcopal. He used to go to church every Sunday, but he stopped going in his twenties. My mother, who never really believed, fought relentlessly with her parents until they gave up on trying to force her to go. She's the one who really loves Christmas, though. Every year she goes mad over decorating until the house is covered from head to toe in garlands and wreathes and Christmas figurines. And nutcrackers. She's collected them since she was little, and by now she has an impressively extensive collection which she shows off every year with pride. She loves the Nutcracker ballet (she's actually leaving for the pirate themed dance along nutcracker in San Francisco in about half an hour), heck, that's why I'm named Clara.

So, yeah. She loves Christmas. I remember last year when she broke down in the kitchen while we were making date balls and listening to "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" and told me that the previous year, when we were living in the old house, it was around Christmas that she got the letter saying that we were going to lose the house. Of course, she never told anyone until January, she didn't want to ruin the holidays, but she knew that that was going to be our last Christmas at home. She still adores Christmas, though. She loves rituals in general. She loves knowing exactly what is going on. When she is going to the gym, when she has work, when she is volunteering at where, she plans it all out as far in advance as she possibly can. So when the holidays come around, and everything shuts down, she clings to Christmas as a sort of crutch, to distract her and keep her busy.

I love Christmas too, but sometimes I wonder if I love Christmas because I love Christmas, or If I love Christmas because she does.

XOXO
Clara

Some of the strongest memories I have of my childhood are related to food. Grilled cheese and tomato soup, Boston baked beans from my family's special recipe, biscuits and gravy, my dad's chilli, and cornbread drizzled with honey. Blueberry muffins and pineapple upside down cake and toasted pumpkin seeds and gumbo with creole seasoning and homemade caramel that's warm even when it's cold. I remember days in my kitchen with the smell of delicious things in the air and a full oven, sitting barefoot on the counter, drying dishes and laughing while my sister read Jean Kerr aloud and my parents listened and chatted and cooked in sizzling pans on our stove. The kitchen was always so warm, the best room in the house.

I was just thinking about cornbread and honey a few minutes ago, and I started crying. I realized that I'm growing up. I'm not ready to grow up yet. I miss my old home and I miss my grandma and I miss my uncle and I miss believing that everything was gonna be okay, and thinking that bad people were only in fairy tales. I miss having blind faith in my family and I miss being happy. I miss the days when I could come home after a bad day, and my parents would give me hot cocoa and something warm to eat. Like cornbread and honey. Better than any cake, like coming home to a full house and loving somebody. Even more lonely than nobody loving you is having nobody to love.

I miss cornbread and honey. I wanna go home.

I got many teeth removwd yesterday and the doctor gave me a coctail of medecines that is making me kind of woozy and i'm not quite sure how to deal with who i am right now. i know i'm bad at everything i do and they keep on telling me over and over again. i don't like this. i don'tlikemyself right now and i'm sorry if i di something wrong. i don't know what i did but i'm sorry, please talk to me i'm sorry . plese forgive me i dont know what i did im sorry shira.

yesterday i started to feel like crap about my body again.

yay.

logically, i know that there is nothing spectacularly terrible about the way i look. a little sickly, maybe, kinda short, some acne, but nothing too bad. i know that i'm not fat. i just. sometimes i feel so goddam worthless. i feel big and clumsy and ugly and i know that everybody feels that way at one point or another in their life and i know that i don't need to lose weight, but i feel like i should.

last summer, i stopped eating for a bit. i would go for as long as i could stand without food, and when i had to eat, i obsessed over calories. i would exercise until my inhaler wore off and i got an asthma attack, and i still wouldn't eat. i stopped dong that a few months back, and in hindsight, i'm glad i got out before i got in too deep, but sometimes i still feel like maybe i should start again. i don't want to, but they keep cheering me on.

they're not bad, per say, but if i have a negative thought, they latch onto it and start shooting it back at me 24/7.
fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat fat a mantra that they pound into my head until i can't think anything else.

i have friends that would yell at me if i tried to tell them this. they would say that i'm an idiot and that i'm not fucking fat so i should stop fucking saying it, and i know that i shouldn't feel bad about the way i look, but that's not gonna stop me. i don't try to be insecure, i just fucking am.

what a talent, huh?

You know what? I'm pissed and I'm scared and I'm worried and I feel like throwing up and I am fucking angry. And I'm tired of pretending that I'm not. I hate that I put on this facade of happiness and energy and excitement and I hate how whenever I try to make a place where I can stop putting on that mask, I just end up doing it there. It's just so easy to lie. Things like sadness and anger and hate and depression are hard and complicated, and pretending to be happy is simple, because nobody ever says "you are smiling and talking and you look like you are enjoying life, what's up with that?" If you look like you might be the slightest bit under the weather, you get a barrage of questions and people telling you that they care, that you would be missed, that try to convince you to be happy and are then angry when you can't manage to do that. So you pretend to be happy, and it's tiring, but you're always tired anyway and people leave you alone. Lying is simple and easy and I do it to you and I do it to my friends and I do it to my teachers and I do it to my therapist and I do it to my parents and I do it to strangers who ask me about my day. But right now, my mother is drunk and has been having crying fits every day for the past week and she scares me and my father is ridiculing everything I do that he doesn't like in the hopes that I will feel bad enough about myself that I won't do it anymore and I am angry and I am going to say it:

I DON'T LIKE LIFE.

And don't you dare try to comfort me. And I have thought a thousand times about killing myself and yes, I know I would be missed and I know that I am loved, but I wish I wasn't so that wouldn't be hanging over my head every single time I look at a knife or a gun or a bottle of pills or when the thought even crosses my mind because I have a Reason to Live.

And I fucking hate it.

If I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight, will you pardon me and tiptoe through the tulips with meeeeeeeee

So I've decided to write a blog post like other blogs. That means no creepy writing about hallucinating or night or weird poetry. Wait. Oh shit. I write emo poems, don't I? Fuck. I never thought I would be that person. Fuck.

Oh well.

Anyway, the creepy psychopathic brain children, as I like to call them, are pretty calm tonight. Z is pouting because I won't play with him. Marcus is singing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" (he does a mighty fine Tiny Tim impression). I'm not sure where Seven is. She's been kind of quiet all day.

I wanted to talk about a recent development in my life: I've started playing roller derby. And I feel so much better about myself. It's a lot of fun, and never something I thought I would enjoy, but I really do. I love roller skating, and bashing the shit out of other chicks is fantastic for relieving stress. The workout it gives me is doing amazing things to my body, and, possibly the strangest development, I know people now. I have people who don't care that sometimes I stare at things for a bit too long or have really messy habits or get distracted by butterflies, they just care that I'm me. They took the time to learn who I am, and they haven't backed away very slowly, so as not to upset me.

That's usually a good sign.

xoxo
Clara

sometimes the shadows move.
it's not really easy to notice, it's subtle, but once you see it, it's hard to stop. they grow. and they curl like smoke, forming different shapes.
coming alive. not like poets talk about, but alive in the most literal sense. they grow eyes that follow you and mouths with glinting teeth that peer out of the darkness and whisper in your ear while you sleep. When you hear that high pitched whine, that buzz in your ears, that's them trying to talk to you in their voices that are just beyond the cusp of your consciousness.
They are with you wherever you go. the good ones protect you, wrap you up in themselves like a blanket, keep you safe when you walk home.
They keep you safe from the bad ones.
Those shadows on hot days that are just a bit thicker than the rest, that give you an uneasy feeling, that you don't want to touch. there's a glint of something shiny in the dark, and it's not a coin.
So few people notice the shadows. people rarely notice anything of importance. they squash down their instincts, ignore the voices in their heads, you should never ignore those voices. they keep you alive.
well, when they don't want you dead they do.

I'm a ghost. That's it. I forget I exist sometimes, then I see my reflection, and I remember that
I'm here. Except I'm not. I'm a ghost. That's why I can see the monsters. They're ghosts too. Everybody says that they're not real, and I know they can't be, but they are. I can see them, and people lie. People are stupid. They never see and they never listen, and if you see and you listen, then you're crazy. People never want to admit they're wrong, they want everything to be like them. I like my monsters. Except for sometimes. Sometimes they scare me. but sometimes I scare them, so it's okay. Sometimes I scare me, too. The big one scares me a lot. He never moves or anything. He's just there. I thought we left him behind when we moved, but he's still there. But he isn't there also. He's a ghost. Why can't people see reality? They just ignore all the things they don't like, ignore the monsters under their beds, the hearts in the floorboards. They pretend that they know what "reality" is. They don't know a thing. They ignore their monsters. The big one has strange eyes. One is red, the other is green. He has very tiny eyes. He never talks. Sometimes they talk. Sometimes they try to hurt me. Sometimes they wrap their hands around my throat when they think I'm asleep and they squeeze. Sometimes it's my own hands. But it's okay. I still like my monsters. They can try to kill me if they want to. I like my monsters.

if it kills me

I want to leave right now. I want to walk out my front door and go to a gig. i want to listen to music and make some acquaintances, i want to throw myself into a pit and have the shit beaten out of me to the rhythm of good music by new people, i want to run and jump and sing and scream and dance and go to the beach and wait there 'till morning, listening to the waves and the radio and feeling the wind and salt sting my face and i want to watch the sunrise and fucking live.

that's part of why i like staying up all night. you live through those hours no matter how sad or stressed or freaked the fuck out you are and then you look at the world opening it's bleary eyes and think I made it. i survived this day, i will survive the next and the one after that. i will survive the rest of my life and i will make it through this year if it kills me.

so. my mom took me to see a shrink yesterday. the whole day she kept on calling it a doctor's appointment if anybody else was in earshot, like she was fucking ashamed to have a kid that needed help. i mean, i get where she was coming from, but she's my mom. she's supposed to accept who i am, and if i need help, she shouldn't be so ashamed of that.

i slept for thirteen hours last night. i didn't sleep at all the night before. i don't want to be here. i'm tired.
i think it's going to rain soon. that'll be nice. i miss actual weather.

I am sick of my face. I am so fucking sick with waking up every morning, looking in the mirror and seeing this fucking face and the fucking person behind it. I hate her. She's such a fucking asshole and she's weak and fat and acne-ridden and so goddam annoying. I hate having to see her. I'm sick of her. I am sick of my fucking face. Why can't she just go the fuck away? I fucking hate who I am. fuck fuck fuck fuck fucking fuck shit eating pogo jumping jesus christ and his goddam cat. Why do people always say that you will stop hating yourself eventually, that it's just a phase? i have been going through 15 years, 3 months, and 5 days of this phase, and it doesn't seem like it's ending anytime soon. I hate who i was, i hate who i am, i have never been a tolerable person. just fucking kill me already. i want it to stop.

my dad left for a business trip this morning, and i watched him go with the unsettling feeling that he is going to die.

my father needs an oxygen compressor, which is basically a thing that filters air into its components, and sends oxygen to him via cannula. He is going to new jersey, and due to a few stupid complications, he cannot take his compressor, nor his oxygen tanks with him. whenever he goes for a long time without his oxygen, he turns blue because his respiratory system is incapable of providing his body with enough oxygen to keep its organs functioning.

i don't want my daddy to die.

Just FYI

I have to go camping. For a week. Starting tomorrow. I will spend seven days surrounded by drunk and angry family members while being sucked dry by mosquitoes. I will not be posting during that time, as I will have no internet access.

I expect I am going to be doing a lot of reading.

Hello, Happiness, my old friend. Did you miss me?

I feel good. I feel happy. I know it's just a mood swing, in a few minutes my mind will turn against me, but I don't really have the ability to care. A lot of things are going well in my life. I've lost weight, I cut my hair, I'm seeing friends tomorrow for swimming and horror movies, life feels manageable for the first time in a while.

Next spring I'm going on a trip to the UK with some of my schoolmates and fellow literature enthusiasts. I am going to spend ten days surrounded by books and rain and fantastic accents, and by fantastic accents, I mean fan-fucking-tastic accents. We are going to Scotland for part of it.

I am happy, and I don't really have much more to say about it.

i know you're all getting tired of my shit, but i have to do this.

i don't want to be here. it would be so easy, you know? like falling asleep. i swear i can feel something. something dark. i want to call it a demon, but it doesn't feel like a demon. it feels like a hug. like there's something there, just beyond the cusp of my reality and it's wrapping its arms around me and whispering sweet nothings into my ear, just holding me and comforting me, hooking its chin over my shoulder and snaking warm, strong arms around me and keeping the broken pieces of myself together, but every time i try to get closer, there is nothing there.  i'm tired of there being nobody there. for once i want somebody to not have to ask, to just hold me because if you ask, i'll say i'm fine, but i'll be lying. i want somebody to just know.

i wrote a thing

days run out and nights run dry
the bottom of the bottle is as empty as your eye
one by one and two and three
all the sailors go out to sea
sing and laugh and live and thrive
dancing to the siren's cry
crashing waves and stinging foam
not a single one comes home.

false happiness

False happiness is such bullshit.

What makes it false? Drugs, alcohol, self harm, they all release dopamine into your system. Dopamine means happy. So why is it false?

Chocolate also releases dopamine. Does that mean that the happiness you get from eating chocolate is also false? What about a kiss? Is that false happiness?

That's why it pisses me off when people say that people who do drugs or who cut aren't happy, that they just think they are. The happiness they feel is as true as any you might experience. We don't have enough happy in our lives, so we do what we need to to get more. That's what I think people are addicted to. It's not the drug. The world is addicted to happiness. We need it, we crave it, we can't live without it. So we get it. From things that happen or things that we make, we get it. So don't say that my happiness is any less real than yours. It may not be good, but it's real.

apparently they need to have a fucking title now

I need to do something. Anything. I need to run, walk, something to take my mind off of itself. I need to go out back, but my mother is there and she will take one look at me and want to talk, and I don't want to talk, I want to do. Why can't it be night already? Then I could go out and the sun wouldn't burn and there wouldn't be people who want to talk or who want me to smile and I wouldn't have to do anything. When did I become so fucking antsy? I wasn't always this fidgety. Or maybe I was. I don't know. Dammit dammit dammit dammit fucking hell stupid people and their stupid fucking thoughts why can't they stop and leave me alone and stop pitying me and just stop. fucking damn it all. I need to punch something but I can't punch the wall that ended badly last time I need to rip something to pieces and hear it scream. I need it to be warm and gushing I need to rip and tear and kill. I need to hurt something. I want to hurt something.

I scare myself sometimes.

the future.

Hey there kids! It's 3:35 in the morning, and you know what that means!

It's time for another installment of "Clara is an insomniac zombie!" YAAAAAAAAYYY.

It's hot. It got up to ninety today, and as I have previously stated, I do not like hot weather, so in the Clarometer, It was about ten degrees over "lay in bed and die" and well into "oh dear god."

One of these days, I am going to get out. I refuse to be one of those people who just stays in one town their entire life. I know people like that. They were born here, their parents were born here, their grandparents were born here, all of them grew up here, went to school here, got married here, never left here, and fully intend on dying here. They make me sad. They never want to see what's out there, they stay with what they know, with what is safe, and that really depresses me because life isn't safe. It's not supposed to be familiar. As my biology teacher said in one of her few moments of good-teachery; "nothing about reality is constant."

I'm gonna get out of this town, out of this state, and I'm going to go somewhere where it snows in the winter. The closest I'd ever consider to being here is on the other side of the continent. New York, Jersey, maybe. Somewhere I don't know anybody and I can't run home. Somewhere where I can force myself to regenerate. Maybe London. Somewhere where I can study my music and be the person that I want to be instead of the crappy person I'm stuck as.

I can't be close to home because I know I will give up if I am. I will run home and be safe and I can't do that. I want to rent a small apartment and go to college and be able to play folk rock and Black Flag on my guitar at four in the morning. I want to be able to watch the sun come up. I want to be able to wear what I want without judgmental looks from people I know. I want to drink coffee and write and draw and sing and be me for once in my goddamn life I want to be me. And I can't do that in California. The ghosts of everybody else are overwhelming me.

It's five in the morning. I guess you could say that I'm up early, but only if you completely disregard the fact that I never actually fell asleep. I tried for a few hours, got up and had a mug of tea and drew things, read for a few hours, then just gave up and started writing this. I do this a lot. It's gotten to the point where I have pages and pages in my sketchbook filled with drawings that I make at three in the morning and coffee and tea rings from where I set my mug down on my paper. I once went three days without sleeping just because I wasn't tired. Of course, at the end of it I passed out on a book, but before that, I just couldn't sleep. I never can, really.

I was talking to a friend of mine once, and she told me about how she always plans out anything she writes before she writes it. Do people actually do that? I've always made things up as I go along. I believe it's more effective at capturing thoughts and emotions. I don't plan, I rarely edit, I just write. Part of that may be because I am one lazy piece of shit, but the capturing the essence bit was good, let's go with that.

I'm so fucking sick. Read that however you want, they're all true.

feelings and alcohol and needles

I'm tired. I don't mean sleepy, just tired. Today is one of those days where I get the whole 'the heart is the epicenter of all feeling' shit because the brain may be where feelings take place, but your chest is where you feel it. It feels like I've lost something, and now there is just this gaping hole where it used to be and I'm so desperate to get it back, but I don't know what it is, so I'm left frantically for an unknown object in an unknown place with no hiding spots and I can't see what I'm doing, but I just need this unknown thing more than I need air but I can't find it because it doesn't exist.

I could easily see myself growing up to be an alcoholic. I heard somewhere that people with a history of alcoholism in their families are more likely to become alcoholics themselves, and I certainly have enough alcoholics in my family for that to apply. My mum's an alcoholic. I have a few blurry memories of when I was young of watching my mother get drink after drink after drink and her crying and screaming and the days after were the ones when my father would drop my sister and me off at school and would say goodbye but couldn't bring himself to look into our eyes. At every single family gathering everybody gets drunk and laughs and yells and argues and my uncle talks about all the kids he beat up in school, but he "wasn't a bully. You know, kids like that, they just get beat up." And my grandfather, whom I normally adore talking to, as he is an author and he knows more about poetry than anybody I have ever met, talks about "the dykes and the fags and the Jews" and he doesn't know he's being offensive, he's just old (he fought in World War II for chrissake) but I'm bisexual and my girlfriend is Jewish and he doesn't know about any of that and it just hurts because I love him so much but he can never know the details of my life because he will never forgive me.

But yes. Alcohol. I see all of this, and I still see the appeal. I've had a few glasses in my life. A glass of champagne at New Year's, a glass of wine when relatives are over, and it's tingly. a sip makes everything a bit warmer and brighter, and I'll be the first to admit that I need a little bit more warmth in my life. I can see myself becoming an alcoholic, but I don't want to. I don't want to be one of those people who get a bottle and they drink until they cry and they drink until they stop and they drink just because they have the bottle in their hands and what the hell else are you supposed to do?

Moving on,

I have been thinking about getting another piercing. There is this great place in San Francisco called Body Manipulations (link even though I am fairly sure you are not in California) who does every piercing with a hand held needle. I've gotten my other piercings done there and the feeling is fantastic. It hurts less than you'd think. There's a little bit of a sting when the needle goes through the skin, but after that it's just this slow sort of burn, this stretch that hurts in the  best way possible. It's like a wave that you could ride for-fucking-ever and it's just fuckin' awesome. There's another way that I am fairly certain I will end up as; twenty-five and covered in tattoos and piercings. They will love me at airports. (I also might give my uncle a heart attack, but that's just a bonus.)

smoke and night

I love the way smoke looks. I can't smoke because I have asthma and one hit would kill me fucking dead, but I like watching it. I love how it looks alive, the way it curls around objects and unfurls into the sky. I love the way the light hits it and it turns the air murky and mysterious. I love the way it looks when people lean against a wall and have a cigarette or a joint in their fingers and they inhale and close their eyes and let the smoke pour like liquid out of their nose and mouth and curl around their fingers. And I love the way it looks on a ceiling, when the combined trails from a hundred mouths form murky clouds overhead and fill a room with the stench of tobacco and pot, I love the way it lingers on clothes and skin, musky and spicy and sharp and sweet.

So it's summer, and it is way too hot and too bright to do anything. I keep on trying to explain that I am a teenager, a creature of the night, and that I am pale and nonathletic and that they should know what a delicate fucking butterfly my immune system is, but they refuse to listen and continue to make loud noises at eight in the morning (which is too early for anything, I mean, jesus wept) despite my insomnia. My mother says that I should just take a melatonin if I'm having trouble sleeping, but the truth is, I like having insomnia. I like being awake at four in the morning when everybody else is asleep and sneaking out to the porch and looking at the stars. It's weird, but I like being tired, too. I like that state of sleep deprivation where everything is sharp and real and alive. I don't have to worry about the reality of what I see because I don't have to be crazy if I see things that aren't there. I can just blame it on a lack of sleep. Sometimes during the day, I start to miss the night and then I feel guilty because the day is beautiful in its own right, but it doesn't have the security of the dark. I have never been afraid of the dark. The sun burns and kills and heats, but the dark is safe and cool and it surrounds you like a hug. The dark will never hurt you. The night comforts you when you cry and hides you when you can't bear to be around anybody. the light will come and go, but shadows are always left behind to help you.

A Rant.

Okay, listen up. I'm pissed. I am so fucking done with people being insensitive little shits and using things like 'bipolar' as insults. As someone who has bipolar disorder, hearing someone say, "Stop being so bipolar" in an argument really fucking pisses me off. It is a disorder. It's not like it's something I can control, If I could stop changing moods at the drop of a hat, I would. I don't enjoy being confident one minute and wanting to kill myself the next, it's not fun for me. And just hearing people use what I have as an insult, that stings. Gay should not be used as an insult. There is a reason why people yell at you when you call something retarded. Neither of these things can be controlled, neither of them are a choice and that is why they should not be insults and that is why bipolar should not be an insult. Why are most insults based on things that are out of our control? You throw like a girl. I just had a total blonde moment. You are so white.

Why can't you see this is a bad thing?

Okay. I'm done.

Sooo...

So.

It's been a while.

There is a reason for that. Several, really. Most of them are health related. My father's health has never been exactly great, but it recently took a turn for the worse, and now he has oxygen that he carries around in a tank fed to his nose via cannula. My health has been quite shitty recently as well.

When I was a child, I had the immune system of a fucking rock. Now, suddenly I have allergies. I have to take medicine, I have asthma, I need glasses, I'm getting sick every month, when did I become such a delicate butterfly? My mental health has taken a nosedive as well, and that's more than a little unsettling. My mother saw the scars on my arm. She cried. I cried. She asked if I only just started. I told her she only just noticed. She's trying to get me to see a shrink.

I don't want to write about this anymore.

Last month was my birthday. My girlfriend baked me a carrot cake and got me roses and an enormous cup of coffee. She knows me so well :)

I reread Fahrenheit 451. It was even more awesome than I remember. I mean, holy shit, just read this:

“There are too many of us, he thought. There are billions of us and that’s too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood. Good God, who were those men? I never saw them before in my life!”

Holy.
Fucking.
Shit. 
If you haven't read it, read it. Right now. The movie is crap, but read it. Also Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. And, fuck it, I'll make a list.

I was going to make a post today, but right now, I just can't. It's just MCR and I just can't. I trust you understand.

I'M NOT A STONER. Wooaahh, duuude, look at my hands...

Let me start by saying this: I need glasses. Seriously, my mum and I were playing cows on a drive last week and I had such a hard time telling the difference between cows, horses, and the occasional deer that I stopped calling out "Cows" and started calling "Quadraped!"

It was not my best moment.

But anyway, I need glasses, so the other day, my mum and I went to get my eyes checked so I could get the right prescription, and let me say, it was the single most confusing experience my eyes have ever been through. There were flashing lights and blurry images and my mum being all haughty because she had better eyesight than me (but she got laser eye surgery, so it doesn't count) and at the end, the put these drops in my eyes that made my pupils dilate so I couldn't focus my eyes. And when I say dilate, I mean dilate completely. I looked like I had been possessed by a demon, there was no iris left to be seen.

And they stayed like that.

For two hours.

And when your pupils are dilated, they take in more light. Which means that for two hours I sat with my head in my arms and my eyes closed shut to make sure that no light got through to my retinas because it hurt so much. I felt like a vampire, and I probably looked like one too.

Now here's the funny thing, when I got home, my pupils still hadn't shrunk to the normal size yet, so that added to my new found sensitivity to light meant that I looked really, really stoned.

I took a picture:

And what they're supposed to look like:

Scary, isn't it? (Sorry about the crap lighting.)

Happy.

Recently, I've been feeling very shit. So, I decided that I would make a list of things that make me happy.

-Spring Break is officially here

-My beautiful girlfriend came back from Israel

-I am eating pie out of a bowl and it is delicious.

-I learned how to play Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons on the ukulele

-In art class we talked about Frida Kahlo and Louise Bourgeois

-Tom Milsom released over an hour of unreleased music and it is amazing

-Swing Club was today

-I am alive.

The last one doesn't always fall into the happy category, but right now, I'm glad to be alive. I spent the day with beautiful people doing wonderful things and right now, I am just so happy and excited about everything!
And sure, my back hurts and it's really hot (71.8ºF!! Contrary to popular stereotype, California is not all beaches and 80º on a cold day.) but right now, life is alright. And that's a damn sight better than what it has been.

Life is confusing and terrible.

Today was quite possibly one of the most emotionally stressing I have had in a while for no specific reason.
I started the day by waking up crying because of I nightmare that kind of opened up a lot of old wounds and poked at a lot of insecurities. After I had calmed down, I realised that I was incredibly tired. So tired, in fact, that I collapsed as soon as I got up. I tried to solve this with a gargantuan mug of tea. In first period, I had a math test. At 8 AM. I did alright, despite my lack of sleep. Then during second period I promptly crashed. And burned. You think Chernobyl was bad? That bitch ain't got nothing on me.

Second period finally ended, which was good because at that point, I was stabbing myself with a pencil to stay awake. During break I just gave up and took a nap on a bench. It was surprisingly comfortable.

Third period is art. That was all good. Nice and peaceful, just creating value scales with tempra paint. But then, the teacher called up everybody to have their picture taken. I feel like I should clarify that I hate having to have my picture taken when I am tired. I don't like having my picture taken on normal days, but when I'm tired, I loathe it. What I hate even more than that is having to smile. I don't find smiling natural or pleasant. It just doesn't work on my face. But my teacher wanted me to smile, so I smiled because I like her and she just wants me to be happy and then I saw my picture and why do I have to be so god-awfully hideous? Then I had to struggle to hide an anxiety attack.

Fourth period was choir. Normally I love that class, but today I fought back tears for the entirety of it. At one point I escaped to the bathroom so I could have a bit of a cry without anybody noticing.

Lunch was loud and dismal.

The rest of the day was just lethargic. I just wanted to crawl in a corner and cry. I still sort of do.  I dissected flowers in biology (boringly easy) and then had gym (terrible).

I want to conclude by saying this: I haven't self harmed in a week and I am miserable. I was happier when I was cutting daily because you know what? The reason why self harm is so addictive is because it works. You hurt, then you feel better. And now I'm supposed to stop doing the only thing that made me keep on going and be happy about it? Why do I have to quit in the first place?

I am a pathetic human being.

Every month or so, I feel really bad about the way I live and decide that I'm going to get better. I clean my room like a maniac.  I tell myself that I'm going to eat healthier and exercise more often.

This is usually what happens:

Me: *reorganizing bookshelves* Oh, wow! I haven't read this one in years! Maybe I'll just read for a chapter or so... *stays up until 5 AM reading*

Me: Okay, Clara. You have to eat. You are not fat. But eat healthy. And no, coffee does not count as food.

ONE WEEK LATER

Me: Fuck this. Doughnut.

TWO DAYS LATER

Me: *looks in mirror* I am so fat.

Me:*goes for three mile run* *comes home wheezing* I... forgot... to... take... my... inhaler.

THIRTY MINUTES LATER

Me: *limps pathetically through house* Everything hurts... *doesn't run again for a month*


Who needs muscles and cleanliness?

Till human voices wake us

 Recently, I have started listening to My Chemical Romance, and one of my friends likes to comment on this incessantly. Here is the last conversation I had with him on this subject.

Him: But seriously, My Chemical Romance? They're so emo-

Me: Hypocrite.

Him: What?

Me: (Looks him in the eye) Nirvana, bitch.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ (WARNING- moderately depressing) ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
A couple of weeks back, my family drove to San Francisco for the day and went to the beach. We brought kites and the dog and went down to this little cove and played around for a few hours.
It was San Francisco, so naturally it was extremely windy, which is perfect for kiting, but rather annoying if you have long hair like I do. But in one of my few moments of complete sight, I looked down at my shadow and saw my hair dancing around me, looking like some sea creature from the depths of the ocean, like the world had suddenly changed order, and the wind rushing in my ears had turned to water, and if I looked up, I would see fish swimming through the clouds and gulls soaring through the surf. And as this surreal image occupied my mind, I was reminded of the ending stanzas from T.S. Elliot's "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock"

"Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

  I do not think they will sing to me.

  I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

This is kind of what it's like to be bipolar. You have these moments of- not exactly happiness, per se, but optimism. Unconquerability. You feel this wave of triumph and hope wash over you. Then the human voices ring out, and it's like waking up into a nightmare. The human voices wake you, and you drown.

"And now it's time," the walrus said, "to talk of many things..."

I feel really helpless today. Yesterday was wonderful, I spent time with friends, I barely felt depressed, just a bit under the weather. But today...
I feel lethargic. I wrote a few poems, sketched a picture that I'm going to transfer to scratchboard, but all I want to do is sleep. I'm not even tired, I just want to not be awake.
One of my friends told me he loves me. I don't know what to do. He doesn't even know me that well.
I can't believe it's almost been a year. It feels so short, but at the same time, I can't believe it's just been a year.
One of my friends tried to kill herself.
Another one relapsed.
A third tried to take advantage of me.
A fourth has changed for the worse.
It's a nice day out. Rather warm. I think I might go outside and just lay down and look at the sky and exist. It's nice to do that sometimes. Exist. A lot of people mix up living and existing. Living is busy and complicated and loud. There's always something going on, but existing? Existing simply is. I'm quite happy with existing. It's just living that's the trouble.
I'm really excited for Tom Milsom's new album.
I don't think I've told you, but I have a lot of trouble showing emotions in my voice and facial features. I thought you might like to know.
I listened to Eddplant's most recent album. I liked the acoustic version of "Nothing to Worry About" better. It had a beautiful sort of simplicity that very few male artists have.
I didn't eat yesterday. Or today. I'm not that hungry.
I learned how to play "Hallelujah" on the ukulele. It sounds pretty.
I have recently started focusing on art a lot more. Both visual and auditory. I like Ron Mueck and Jaymay and Salvador Dali.
I like that I don't have to pretend here. I don't have to be happy all the time. I can be the fucked up person I am.
Maybe I'll put a few of my poems on here. They're not very good, but they're readable.
One of the most annoying things in the world is when people come up to me and say, "Are you okay?" and I'm like "Yeah, I'm fine." and they just give me this look of complete non-belief and incredulity and say "Are you sure?" and I'm thinking 'Dude, if I say I'm fine, then either A) I'm actually fine and you're just being insulting, or B) I'm not fine, but I don't want to talk about it and I really would prefer it if you left me alone,' but I can't say that, so I just smile and say "Yeah, I'm sure."
And I am fine.
I may not be okay, but I'm fine.

Please.

I need someone to be there. Please, talk to me. Why isn't anyone there? Why do I always have to be the one who listens to people? Why do I have to be the one who rubs their shoulders and listens to their tears? Why doesn't anybody ever help me? Why don't they listen? I need someone to tell me I'm wrong. I just relapsed and I'm freaking out and I can't do this anymore. There's so much blood and I don't know how I'm gonna hide it. My girlfriend left a month ago. I know why. Why can't I be pretty? Why can't I be thin? Why do I have to be so fucked up? Why can't I be happy? I need someone. I  need a hug. I need to not exist for a little while. Why won't anybody listen? I can't do this. I can't do this. Why do I even try? I'm going out of my fucking mind. Why won't you stop me?