Tired

I honestly have been so unmotivated lately. All I can think about is how much I want to go home and how shitty this school is. Ugh. I have three more years of this. I just don't know if I can do it. And what if I don't even become a writer? What if my book is rejected? I don't want to be an english teacher or work for a magazine or a stupid newspaper. I just want to write books! Everything in life is so difficult. Sometimes I wonder what's the point of it all.

Dad

Fix yourself.

Mom

You're the strongest woman I know.

Arika

I can't tell you how sorry I am that you're seven years old right now, and you're stuck with my father for another eleven years. I wish I could help you, I wish there were some sort of manual I could give you to deal with our father, but honestly I still don't have him figured out. I probably never will.

My mom would always tell me that our dad loves us all, he just has a different way of showing it. I used to believe that with all my heart. I used to cling to that thought whenever I visited him, but I don't think I can anymore. I don't think I should be around him anymore. He's caused a lot of damage in my life. A lot of emotional scars that may never heal entirely or the right way. I shouldn't have to have a father who can't pick up his kids every other weekend like he's supposed to. I shouldn't have to stay up at night thinking and thinking and thinking about the time he nearly killed my mom. I shouldn't be pulling out my hair over trying to figure out why nothing I do is enough. Arika, one day, you'll realize that our dad is emotionally and verbally abusive, and after that, you'll realize that you don't need him, and he's probably going to never change. I just hope it doesn't take you as long as it took me. I don't know if our father loves us. I don't know if it's possible for him to love. I don't know if he ever did. I do know, that if he does, he has a shitty way of showing it, and he needs to get it right before I let myself back into his life. I wish I could see you, but if seeing you means seeing our father, I just can't.

Abusive people get their power from the people who they can sucker into staying with them.

I'm not going to let myself be a victim anymore.

Sometimes I Can Think Straight.

I'm a sensitive person, I know that. When I talked to you guys about meeting each other half way, I didn't mean it's just me who's going to try. You guys have to try too. It'll mean not being such sarcastic assholes all the time. It'll mean stop bringing up stuff that happened months ago, and when I tell you I'm upset about it don't use the excuse "It happened forever ago so why does it matter" because that be easily countered with "If it happened so long ago, why are you still fucking bringing it up?". I'm tired of the group being the way it is, but you guys have to put in the effort too. This isn't all on me.

Counselor

I think it's really cool that your favorite artist is Billy Joel and you like poetry. It's also nice that you have art and comics and stuff on your wall. Thanks for teaching me how to be a better person and to accept things when they should be and to change them if necessary. 

Josh

I had a dream you came downstairs to hang out with me and it was like old times and you smiled at me the way you used to and I was happy. 

Then I woke up.

JOSH

WOW YOU KNOW, IT'S REALLY FUNNY, BECAUSE LAST SEMESTER, I TALKED TO YOU AND ROBERT ABOUT SARAH REPLACING ME AND YOU SAID IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN. YOU LAUGHED AND YOU SAID IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN, AND THAT'S SO FUNNY TO ME.

Elephants

"I'm in a hospital for elephants"
one of them told me,
pinching what wasn't there.
"What makes you say that?"
I asked the girl with long fair hair,
She said,
"Isn't it obvious?
My weight,
my body,
it's awful."
I said,
"Oh you sweet girl,
you've barely got a handful.
You're really skin and bones
I can tell you've purged by your jawline.
You're not going to get better
if you just sit here and whine"
"I'm in a hospital for elephants"
She told me once again.
I can't believe it's not obvious.
It's why I have no friends.

Friends

I feel like I'm holding my friends back. I feel like they'd be happier without me. Sometimes I wonder why I even exist.

Nick

It's scary because I haven't had a crush in so long, and everything is happening so fast. I think I really like you, but it's scary. I don't know how to feel. I have four weeks with you, and then the summer with Mason. I don't want to do something I'll regret.

Josh

I leave my comfort zone every day. Don't you fucking forget it.

I think about killing myself several times a day
It's almost always the same scenario
razor in the bathroom
falling asleep in a puddle of my own blood
Does this surprise you?
Here's another thing:
I an not an optimistic person.
I'm the definition of a pessimist,
but I use smiling as a defense mechanism
so people think I'm happy
so I seem more approachable.
90% of the time I'm smiling,
I'm not happy.
You should know that.
I'm not far from suicidal.
Sometimes I want to.
Sometimes.
But would it really be that hard
to push that sometimes into a most times?
Would you care if I did?
And before you defensively answer "Yes, of course!!!! Why would you even blah blah blah",
Just think about it.
No, really. Think harder.
When I'm with you I'm not really there.
You've been hanging out with this alternate version of me
this 2.0 Alyssa I made out of
expectations I once failed to get right
so many years ago
maybe even months ago
weeks ago
days ago.

I am still an eight year old girl who's afraid of her father.
I am this sad depressed
little girl that's stuck under a rock.
The rest of the world is about four years ahead
And my screams have turned into yells
and those into cries
and those into whispers.
I stopped entirely when I got here.
I've started to pretend that I'm not even hurt at all,
but the thing with that, is that everyone else is four years ahead,
and people keep passing me by.
And I wave with this rock on my legs,
flies buzzing around it,
picking at my dead flesh,
and I say:
Hey, how's it going?
and this rock,
this rock is everything I could never do right for my father
everything the kids in elementary school judged me for
it is my fear of loud noises because my dad would slam doors when he was mad
it's the quietness of my voice because when I would even laugh too loud around my father he'd yell at me and say "Shut the fuck up".
It's my fear of failing because I want good grades so maybe my dad would like me a little more.
It's to please everyone I don't have a chance with,
to seem more approachable.
I'm tired of this goddamn rock on my legs.
I'm tired of people seeing me hurt, but because I pretend to be okay, it just slips their fucking minds.
I'm so tired of this.
I am so tired.

Likeable

How do I know if I'm a likeable person? I'd like to think I am but how do I know for sure?

Elliott Smith

I've been a fan of Elliott Smith ever since I heard "Between the Bars" in the movie Stuck In Love last summer, and I'm just now finding out he's dead. It hurts. Considering he was stabbed twice, and his wife found him standing there with the knife in his chest, nobody ever really found out if it was a homicide or a suicide. I kinda feel like he killed himself. I don't know. When I look at pictures of him online, I can see it in his eyes...

Josh and Sarah

Thank you for understanding. It means a lot to me, honestly.

I don't always understand you two, but I'm glad I have you two around, okay?
Sometimes I just get so mad at the both of you that I forget how fortunate I am to have you two around in the first place.
I'm glad you're around.

Oh

I thought about killing myself in the shower again today.
It's weird because
that's when my best ideas come to me;
the ones I usually go with.
It was an alternate scenario of Meg, Nathan and I talking about our issues with Sarah and Josh,
And in this scenario, Josh walked in after overhearing what we said and yelled at me.
It was really bad.
And in the scenario, for some odd reason,
I had a razor on my night stand.
I took it to the bathroom and ran,
And in this scenario,
The bathroom locked from the inside (Oh my God I wish I wish I fucking wish)
And I locked both doors and cut,
and cut,
and cut.
And I bled out on the bathroom floor.
In the scenario, Nathan called my counselor, and he broke down the door when he got there,
but he was too late.
It may have been the hot water,
But it was comforting.
Watching the scenario from a bird's eye view,
watching me laying on the floor in my own blood...
It was comforting seeing me there,
but not there.

...

I hate being jealous. And it's like whenever I try to retreat from that feeling I just end up thinking about Mason, but then it's like that's not okay either bc he's  literally my future fucking step brother. What the fuck is wrong with me. I feel so fucked up. I feel like I should bring it up to Michael so I can hear his opinion. I mean I'm kinda paying him to listen to me bitch for forty five minutes so I might as well use it haha.... *sigh*