i don't know if i made the right decision tonight- to stay in my room. i could have gone over there and maybe it could have been like last night all over again. but i wasn't really feeling all that lucky, you know. that french girl smoked my weed and drank my juice and told me about all the guys that want to fuck her and then left saying she was going to be right back. i was glad she left, to be honest. i'd rather be lonely by myself- it's more efficient. i could have gone over to his room and made a fool of myself as always, but i didn't and made a fool of myself over text messages. it's actually nice to have the room to myself. my roommate is fucking the guy she likes back home. i'm happy for her. i feel like ted though, with my face dropping briefly- "i'll never find love." he was worried he'd broken my heart and he said that we didn't need to fuck anymore. but i have no idea what i want. i don't think my heart is broken. i'm just tired, mostly. all of my social interactions are feigned. the "real me" lies in bed and looks for patterns in the ceiling. i'm not full of life or enigmatic or interesting. i just want to sleep all day. i'm seeing my good friends tomorrow and i'll put on my brave face. i'll try not to drink too much and i'll try not to spend too much money on shit i don't care about, but we all have vices and mine are typical. is sleeping in empty arms better than sleeping alone? never mind. i don't want to know.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." -Albert Camus

i'm slowly gathering up power again, like i waited a turn after using hyper beam. i'm going to rise up, not like a messiah but, like a twist in the plot. i've accepted that it's always going to hurt at least a little and that makes it easier. i'm going to keep fighting and i think you should too. that's the only way to make it, really. you've come so far and so have i. giving up now would mean forfeiting a well-deserved victory. and are you seriously willing to let them win? REALLY, those bitches and assholes with their ugly minds? you're going to let THEM win over YOU? well, FUCK THAT. i'm going to triumph and the haters can eat shit.

it's like chocolate skin melting under blinding white heat. cold at first, but flowing through touch soon enough. pressed close, but with still a hint of aloofness. it's the fear that keeps us alive, i bet. and maybe i never found that stranger from the bus station because, maybe, that's not how destiny works. the movies make it look so efficient when, really, the process is fraught with mistakes. and i guess i'm scared of being attached to any noun. the verbs take too much time and soul. and if that makes me an adjective, well, i'll have to accept that. i'll keep saying sorry with my eyes and lips and body, if that makes you feel adverb. my heart became hellen keller. "see, i could have me a good guy and still be addicted to them hood rats and i just blame everything on you at least you know that's what i'm good at"

and i guess i'm still dancing around my head, trying to live in a good memory when things are lonely. and maybe, i'm being irrational. but it still feels real, you know? whether or not it actually is reasonable, it still affects me. it's like nails digging into my heart, trying to keep a grip on reality. i guess sometimes i just need someone to talk at. it's nice when people listen, but they don't very often. and when i find someone who does listen, they just criticize the hell out everything i say because i never make much sense. so, i guess it's better when people just tune me out. that's the way it feels. i have friends, but i feel so disconnected nowadays. they say, "i love you, ash" and sometimes, i say it back. but often, i just smile widely and try to feel it. but mostly, i just feel nothing but white noise. being by myself hurts, but being around other people is scary. i'm pretty good at facing my fear a lot of the time. lately, though, it hasn't been worth it. so, i get stoned either by myself or with other people, and none of it matters anymore. i'm pretty low today. but i know i'll come back from it. i've been working on my self-confidence and trying to base it off myself, rather than on other people. i want to like myself just because, and not because some asshole with a moustache tells me i'm "slightly more interesting than other people". i think i'm great, and i need to start acting like it. FUCK THAT NOISE, right? "coz i've always been stronger than that hold the weight of the world on my back it's just love, selfish love love, selfish love"

my past rides by on a broken bike i used to own, circling me again and again until it crashes, finally, into me. am i what i used to be piled up and up until there is no way to take out parts of the tower without knocking down the whole structure? "you" is probably the best answer to a secretly gut-wrenching question, but not the answer to the aforementioned query. i remember when i raged and bellowed at my ex-lover and his mother turned up the sound of the slow, jazzy music coming from the movie downstairs. he quietly stood up and pulled me up to dance because he knew how much i would love that. there was peace briefly, but just long enough, for me to appreciate, but not love, him. his green eyes pored into mine and his eyelashes were soft, but i could not resign myself to such a perfect future. soon, like the song, his bright eyes turned red. and now i research angels and forget about god.

another boy's teeth on my chest now and i feel gutted and alone still. i've been spending lots of time with him and his teeth. we talk for hours and sometimes we kiss for about as long. a smoky sense of disillusionment chokes me up all the time. and i know he's going to get bored of me and then i'll lose interest in him and his teeth will stop tearing into me. and i wish i could say that i was too stoned, too cold, too sad to care but i'm still choked up all the time. the concept of "certainty" eludes me. there is no "tomorrow", but rather a mess of time and space that is indifferent to all. i'm poisoned by chronic loneliness and i'm always welcomed back to the silence of my bedroom after all the light has gone. "there is always one man to save you from another and as that man saves you he makes ready to destroy" -charles bukowski

i was just remembering this one date i had with kyle. it was one of our first dates. we watched movies and had sex for the first time in my basement and then we went out to this expensive country bar. the waitress wouldn't serve us booze since we were underage, so we drank pop. we ate nachos and ribs and then finished with ice cream. and then the band started playing so we went to edge of the dance floor and began slow dancing. the music was fast and upbeat and people were dancing well. but kyle and i didn't know how to dance so we just held each other and swayed in circles. i kissed him and played with his ears as we laughed. it was freezing outside as we headed back to the bus station. i was wearing white heels that i could barely walk in and he grinned as i stumbled around and then moved in close to support me. when i got on the bus, i sat down and opened the window so i could kiss him goodbye. we've been together for six months now. and i ask myself: if i'd known what i was getting into, would i still have gotten into it?

my bones were branded "futile", but i still deemed them "functional". yet some days (especially the ones that rain), i can barely move for fear of losing all ambition. upon these days, i do often lose myself in hazes of smoke and i walk home, dully aware of the lights that i'm so "fortunate" to be heir to. but am i lucky? i'd say luck is relative. i eat horrible food and i give up on beauty for few days until i rise again. when i awake from this "fragile" state, i am fierce and polished to make for the time lost. i merge into society again, hoping to slowly demolish it from within once more and demonstrate to "friends" that there is more to life than "following".

if i could write you a final memo, i'd include the names of all the places i almost saw with you. i'd add the post script to explain the scalding ache of a lover's silence. i'd send it right before the morning dew set in. it's not that i am particularly adept at facing the pathetic madness in this world. but rather that it's the same madness that is revealed again and again. the only difference is that it's amplified each and ever time. as i wait patiently for the fatal, telling blow, i smile because i have lost a war with no sides.

i could talk about how you always leave, but i could also talk about how you always come back. sometimes i feel like the time in between is just a slow torture to make me appreciate you more. and sometimes i feel like the time in between is just the world's way of breaking my heart. "The world breaks us all. Afterward, some are stronger at the broken places." -Ernest Hemingway am i stronger in the broken places? i don't know. i wish i could say yes, but i can't for certain. i'm still so young. and you're still a boy, though legally you're a man. will i love you forever? probably. will you eventually leave for good? probably. i know i sound trite, but i really can't help it. i just keep looking at an even younger, less broken version of myself and sighing because i'll never be like that again. i wish i could send a message back in time to tell myself that everything gets much worse so i'd have been prepared. i'm still not ready for this awful pain in my chest. hell, i don't think i ever will be. i'll do my best to keep going, though. i don't have anything else, but i hope that will change soon. the world has a funny way of giving you what you need, and taking away what you want.