People keep responding to my obnoxiously evangelical and condescending comments in the most INAPPROPRIATE ways.

How can people be so hypersensitive and affected when I so obstinately dismiss their heartfelt writing? 

How can people respond so bitterly to my self-entitled, pompous messages that I send in earnest pedanticalness on this small, casual journaling community? 

Does no one hear my desperate, lonely plea for intellectual validation? 

I may have to start cutting my cucumbers and slashing my prices again...

"And all you other cats throwin shots at Jigga
You only get half a bar - fuck y'all niggaz"

in my mind, i meet marcus aurelius. he speaks not a word!

i speak forever. i tell him every shameful detail of my mundane little existence. i exhaust myself with my overall ineptitude and examine his solemn expression. 

he says nothing because there is nothing to be said. there is "in" and there is "out". there are no excuses. 

you can't solve anxiety, but you can learn to let it run its course. 

he looked old and sad.

i remember how vibrant he was when i first met him. he was old then too, but he youthfully carried himself.

his voice used to crackle in the air and his laugh would spring freely.

now, his brown eyes dully, yet desperately, conveyed the melancholy that had sunk through his mind.

i told him i didn't care. i told him to see a therapist. "you hurt me too much," i said, "you can't nuke somebody and expect there to be anything left to care with for at least 50 years."

let people reap what they have sown,

and let those that leave never come home. 

i was 13 years old when i asked mindy, my grumpy summer camp counsellor, why rob, another grumpy camp counsellor, wouldn't hug me. mindy was in her first year of university. she was too skinny, with a perpetually sullen face. her brown hair was framed by choppy bangs that oppressively covered her muddy, blue eyes. rob was a few years older than mindy. he was strange-looking. like mindy, he was too skinny, but he had almost translucent skin and sunken, dark eyes. his hair was buzzed short and his back had a permanent slouch. 

but, i didn't want to hug him because i liked him. i wanted to hug him because he told us all a story about a time when he was depressed and how jesus was there for him the whole time. i was just starting to realize that i was unhappy, with nobody to talk to about it, and i wanted to hug him and ask him if jesus would be there for me too. but when i tried to hug him, he pushed me away with a look of disdain.

so, sitting at the the picnic table outside later in the afternoon, in a nonchalant yet quivering voice, i asked mindy, "why doesn't rob let me hug him?" 

she said, looking uncomfortable, "rob doesn't really like hugs."

i asked again, with a more pronounced quiver, "but why does he always agree to hug jemma?"

jemma was beautiful, far more beautiful than any 13 year old should have been. she had long, shining blond hair and sharp, blue eyes. with those striking features coupled with a body that could have easily passed for 16, it made sense that he would hug her and not me. she was really charming too; she always knew what to say.

me, well, i was just barely starting to come out of my ugly duckling phase, awkward maturity showing on my face and body. my black, curly hair was just starting to grow long enough so that the weight of the hair kept it from being too frizzy, but the humidity that summer pretty much negated that. i had the same big, brown eyes and the same scrunched-nose smile that i do now. but at 13, my body was too skinny in some places and too wobbly in others. i was too honest. sometimes i was funny but mostly my thoughts were not what people wanted to hear. it made sense that rob would hug jemma and not me.

i could tell mindy knew this. she had to know. she looked so uncomfortable.

"i don't know," she said, looking away and pursing her lips as the truth wrinkled her forehead. her thin, stupid eyebrows were being pushed together by her consternation. she knew. 

"but aren't you friends? couldn't you ask him?" i pressed, knowing i should respect social rules and let it go. mindy didn't want to talk about it. mindy didn't care if it hurt my feelings. it wasn't right that it hurt my feelings.

rob wanted to hug jemma and not me because i wasn't special like she was. she had something glowing, fiery, about her that everyone reveled in.

she was a distraction; a fantasy; an escape.

i was a reminder of mediocrity; a fact of life; an underconstruction sign.

mindy pretended not to hear me and looked away suddenly, as though surprised by something. i looked to see what she was looking at and i saw a few boys my age playing soccer. when i turned back, mindy was pretending to be deep in conversation with another counsellor possessing a sneer engraved on her face, daring anyone to cross her.

quietly sighing, drowning in newfound teenage ennui, i turned around again to watch the boys play soccer. some of them had their shirts off. their boyish muscles flexed and shone in the hot sun, but they didn't care about the sun or if i noticed their muscles. jemma was sitting with her legs stretched out on the grass near the boys, with a group of girls caught in her orbit. the boys glanced up at her often and she smiled easily, letting the sun make her hair more blonde and her skin more golden. 

my obsession is now someone else's obsession. someone else is looking up and seeing what i used to see. celestial spikes of light that gave us life. and here i am, trying to stop buying 3ds games that i barely have the time to play. i just bought bravely default on amazon and i worry my parents are going to be suspicious about how i got the money. i've been spending a lot lately. each receipt is a bandage and, instead of peeling them off to inspect the damage, i keep trying to seal the leak.

my dog is leaning forward watching me eat dinner. his big brown eyes are pleading with me and his little snout is smelling the air hungrily. he's a cute, little, chubby thing. now that the weather has slightly improved i'm trying to take him for longer walks. and we walk, with his tail wagging and his tongue lolling out happily as he pants and takes in the fresh, cold air of early spring. in the present, he got bored of watching me eat and left to go see if anyone else in the house was eating anything.

i spend a lot of time thinking about my dog and the stars.