I made a new friend. I rescued him from being trapped by a girl who is of, well, far less intelligence than the average student. We had never spoken before this. It turns out we have quite a bit in common, and will be attending our senior prom together, as friends. He is going to teach me how to dance. We were supposed to have the first lesson (during our lunch hour in an abandoned room,) but I got ill during second hour and had to go home. Once home, I ate some soup. I didn't feel all that well, but what really ate me up was how that morning I had put on one of my favorite pairs of jeans, and how enormous I looked in them. I left my jacket on all morning, fearing people would see how huge I have become, how I was spilling out of my clothes. I decided I would do it just once. I wasn't feel well anyway, so it's okay. After telling myself over and over again it was a 'one time thing,' and 'I had complete control,' I realized that was how it began before. I decided I should talk to someone about it. I am far too scared to talk to Camden about it. What if my problems push him away again? I am already trying to resist the urge to initiate conversation, afraid I am too often as is. Is that normal? Is that how relationships go? Is it just me? I think it is. Something just..something fell out of place. I texted Kam and told him I needed to talk to him about something. He was delighted in my trust. We had just talked the night before about what a huge accomplishment it is for the both of us to let someone in. An hour or so after, while watching Glee, I teared up, and then had a small breakdown. I furiously texted Kam, telling him not to worry about tonight, and asking if his attempt had been out of depression. I'm not going to attempt, don't get that from here. I was just..panicking. He calmly replied to all of my texts and insisted we speak tonight about what was wrong despite all of my calling him out on being, 'stupid for caring,' and repeated to him, 'I'm moving soon! What is wrong with you? All I am is trouble.' Last night I confessed to him I had made a New Year's Resolution (which I never do) to make no new friends, find no new loves, and begin the heavy task of letting the bricks in my bridges disintegrate. During my fury he said to me, 'I'm not letting you push me away like you have with others. You can try all you want, but I'm not letting you go through this alone.' At this, I wept, and replied meekly, 'Thank you, Kam,' and ceased texting. I did it again after dinner. Just once, huh? I can't do this again. I can't start this again. It's disgusting. Warning: this may be graphic to some, it includes details on bulimia. There is nothing glamorous or enjoyable about have an eating disorder. The worst part after having thrown up your meal is that when you induce vomiting, it tries its best to get out as quickly, even if that means also getting in your nasal passage in the act, so you are left with a nose full of vomit remnants. When you're done, your fingers are covered in not only remnants of a half digested food, but also in thick saliva, and stomach like acid smelling gunk. Eventually, you throw up a little blood with every reverse meal, and your throat always burns, no matter what you drink to absolve the sensation. I will not do this again. And yet, there is such a desire to. I want to be thin so badly. I want to beautiful. I want to be wanted. But I am. I have constant problems with my males friends wanting more and having to go through the awkward process of telling them I am just not into them, but in a way that makes it seem like I am only not into them because of certain circumstances. Truthfully, I just want Camden to seem like he wants me, and he doesn't. I don't want the whole 'I love you so much...' thing back, I couldn't care less about that. I just want to feel wanted by him. I want him to initiate and to chase me like I do him. No matter what I hint or even outright say, he never does, and probably never will. It hurts in my head and in my chest when I think about the future. I can't help but wonder if he will even be there, and what I will do if he isn't. Will I have wasted all this time for nothing? Will my legs have grown tired from the chase to no avail? Only time will tell. Quote of the Day: ~“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.”~ --Truman Capote

I don't think I am doing so well right now. My stomach growls, but I don't wish to give it nutrition. My mind swarms, 'I could so easily just stop eating today, go back to the old way.' But I was sick then, and I know, and I know I must eat, and I know I will...eventually. I really, really, really just want to be alone, but tonight when I did a boy's makeup, my face inches from his, my hand curved gently about his neck, I had an overwhelming want for lips, for arms, for sighs, and embraces. Not his, though, someone else's. I have him back, and we are going slowly, and I like that, but I wish he would pursue more. Yet, he works now, he must always be tired. I mustn't be so demanding, and I want to be alone, right? I have been especially skiddish and PTSD-y. I don't like it. I hate yelping at the sound of me dropping my own pen. I just..I want to be safe, but I am scared of therapy. I read or think about PTSD and my stomach turns cold as if I swallowed some Icy Hot. It doesn't help my therapist keeps canceling on me, never making progress, only on hold, and this elevator music is wearing on my nerves. Maybe this is just some depression, but for some reason I seem to have tears in my eyes. I was merely thinking of hugging a friend and how I do the hugging. I don't think it's because people I know don't wish to hug me. I think it is because I have mainly male friends and they don't want to send the wrong message, which is always good. Where's Mon when I need him? Hah. He gives me the greatest hugs. He's nearly seven feet tall, and little ole' five two me sure does love hugging him. Tall people are the best to hug, I say. They just make you feel so safe, like the way the trees in the forest protect you. I'm going to go snuggle up to the stuffed lamb I have had since my first memory and my stuffed Lorax. Don't judge me, you'll need comfort badly enough someday you'll be begging to borrow them. ~no quote~

I fucking hate my computer class. It is supposed to be web page design, but it is more like 'morons scream and try to spar.' I basically use it as a study hall. I had no choice but to take it. I am in an awful mood. Lia really, really pissed me off. Our friend Lairy has really bad anxiety, to the point where she cries in the middle of class, so I talked to her about therapy. Lia immediately acted like there is absolutely nothing wrong with Lairy and even said she manages it just fine. Crying in class is just fine, right? Then she said to me, 'Not everyone is crazy like you.' and smiled. Fuck her. On a different note, I am feeling anger. This is a first in a long time. I'm not sure if that is good or not. I will talk to my therapist this arvo. I don't like it at all, but everyone keeps telling me it's normal and I should feel anger. Camden and I are back together. I am quite happy, I must admit. I am sending him something (but can't say what here, in case that sneak reads it.) I do hope he likes it. He insists he will since it is from me. He's sweet now that he is getting well. Sweet like he used to be, but not overdoing it. We are taking things slow, which I really like. Quote of the Day: ~“Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence”~ --Vincent van Gogh

Snow is swirling outside of the bay window to my left. Iron & Wine is flowing through my speakers. Coffee steam is swirling, and we are talking. Oh, how I have missed you. When I was in the hospital I wrote you a letter. I never intended to send it, nor will I ever. I want to open fully already, but I must ration it out, I must not free fall. My depression and anxiety have been falling steadily, much like the snow outside, but talking to you makes it feel a little less painful. That has always been the case with you, and I truly hope it has been with you for me too, but I really do doubt that. I wanted to paint last night, but all I did was stare and think. I want to make something beautiful, but all of my beauty falls short, it seems. I am beginning to doubt the beauty in my hands again. I wish I could find away to translate my heart onto canvas. Quote of the Day: ~“A kiss may ruin a human life.”~ --Oscar Wilde

I told myself I wasn't coming back here. "No more writing," I said. That boy who liked to hug me and rest his head on my shoulder, like he really needed me, stopped needing me. He needed sluts and booze more. That's okay. That basketball player who wanted to love me, stopped wanting to love me. He wanted to save me. He was no hero. That's okay. That boy in Ohio. He loves me. I love him. He liked her. That's okay. We're still together. That's okay, too. I like to send him things. We are long distance. I love post, receiving or going. I like to see things and think if he would like it if I sent it, and figure out postage in my head. I don't mind the costs, at least I get to smell the post office. This already feels better. Why did I leave? I am just so empty. Empty, anxious, and sad. Again. Why? I still take my meds. Maybe I need more. I am scared to ask for more. I no longer see my psychiatrist, crazy, late, old woman. I just go to my general physician for pills. I feel like a tin can on a string. Everyone keeps talking to me on the other side, but they sound so distant, like whispers. I feel like a whisper too. In the morning I have to go to church. I hate church. I don't believe in God. Fuck off. But I need a home. Quote of the Day: ~“You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.”~ -Henry David Thoreau

We sit facing one another, my knees in between his, kissing occasionally and speaking gently he says, "Would you be mad if I fell in love with you?" "No," I say and kiss the tip of his nose. "Why, do you think you will?" He puts his hand to my cheek and looks downward, "I partially am already." I kiss him and smile softly. We've known each other for years now, but never really got close. His music taste matches mine perfectly and we both have broken pasts. We adventured around the river. I'm doing my best to show him you don't have to be wasted to have fun. We carved pumpkins the day before with two of my friends. He tells me he never thought he could be so happy. I never thought I could be either. Not this soon, and I never expected it to be with him. Lying in his bed, half clothed, we speak about the dark parts of our pasts. The Decemberists are quietly playing through his speakers. I tell him about my mania, and how it just ended a few days ago. Then we talk about my disease and I tell him about how I was once terribly depressed, how I have been a lot of my life. He asks me if I've ever tried to end it and I tell him I have, but I failed. He wraps his arms around mine and pulls me close to him. "I am very thankful you didn't succeed." Then he teases me and I tease him back. I love the way he shows his affection towards me and how comfortable I am with him. I don't feel embarrassed about my past since his has been similar. His father is an alcoholic and his mother is a stripper who lives far away. She can't enter our state due to warrants. He has messed up his education with drugs and will have attend school an extra year. He asks me about Chicago and if we could work it out. "I don't see why not if we are still happy." I say and am almost surprised I feel this way. He tells me he has never let someone in like this. He keeps himself closed off, acting silly and never letting people know how he feels. He says it is nice to let go and to open up. I giggle and tell him about the irony of it since my name is based off of 'Katherine' which is based off the Greek word for catharsis. He smiles at me and kisses me, teasing me for my love of etymology. I close my eyes and feel the rhythm of his breathing. I fall asleep soundly for the first time in a long time. Quote of the Day: “Our best built certainties are but sand-houses and subject to damage from any wind of doubt that blows” --Mark Twain

In the red Matrix car of Tan's we drive to the fast food joint we plan on eating lunch at. We pull in and we all Spot Esse's truck. 'I fucking hate Esse,' I hear Zac say. I, in surprise, ask why, 'Everyone likes him, but he's such a dick. He hits girls, cheats on all of his girlfriends and is such a douche.' I wonder about his first reason, hits girls? Most people seem to love Esse. I am not one of them. When I first moved to this dumpy little town, I befriended Bri whose family was friends with Esse's, making them friends. Bri always had it out for Esse, that was obvious, but never would admit. Who can blame her? We were thirteen. Esse, for whatever reason, singled me out that year at Bri's house in the summer time. He singled me out and gave me all the repressed sexual attention he could possibly muster. Whether it was grabbing my ass going up the stairs, or pushing himself on top of me where I lay, he had some form of expression to bestow upon me. One night we all went to a late night showing of The Da Vinci code. Being a stupid, lazy thirteen year old, I wore pajama pants. These particular pajama pants were very thin. I originally sat next to Bri, Esse sitting on the other side of her. However, Esse somehow tricked Bri into trading him seats (she was unhappy about this) and immediately began giving me attention. It started with simple flirting: grabbing at my hand, playing with the tips of my fingers, running his fingertips over my arms, then up my legs and then it became much more than what I was wanting, which was really nothing at all. Of course some side of my thirteen year old demeanor liked the attention, and the fact that it made Bri kind of jealous. Esse began grabbing and tugging at my pajama pants. The more he grabbed and felt, the more I squirmed. In the beginning I would simply move his hand back to his own lap, but after doing this a few times, he began to force his hand into mine. What is going on? I felt scared and violated. The movie was a particularly long one, or seemed to be. I sat there, agonized by his touching, wondering if Bri even noticed. He never did much, but my comfort level was at an all time low. I went back to Bri's house that night and lying in the bunk bed I claimed felt so small, so useless, and unimportant. I tried to hide it away. That never happened. I walk into the fast food joint. I am the last of the three people I am with due to talking to Mr. A in the drive thru. I walk in to find Esse, standing off to the side waiting for his order. He waits for the others to pass and in a low voice says to me, 'when you walked in, I vomited a little in my mouth from how hideous you are.' I thank him for the nice comment and crowd closer to my friends. By time I order he is gone. I try to remove his comment from my mind. He's been harassing me a bit more since school started, maybe he missed me over the summer. This really shouldn't bother me, it didn't used to. I have finally begun to feel okay about how I look again, all things considered, so why does this sink into me so hard? This is so fake high school. This is the sort of thing you read in one of those shitty pre-teen novels or see on a horribly produced MTV movie. These things aren't supposed to happen in actual life. These are the things you scoff at when they are blown out of proportion on the news. This can't be real. Quote of the Day: "~Without music life would be a mistake."~ --Nietzsche

This blank notebook page has been staring at me for so long, and I still have nothing to write. I stick my head out of TJ's window, my hand on the door, looking back as we pass the trees and the mountains. The sound of his old Jeep pitters and putters in my ear, but I still can hear the crickets chirping behind it. The moon has illuminated every cloud in the sky with a silver streak, and my mind feels blue. I am aware of the beautiful complexity of my skin, feeling every delicate layer on the other like DaVinci's style of painting. My body is a beautiful wrapping and pulling together of various components, sturdy like the afghan quilt your grandma made you. I wish the dreams would stop of you sometimes. The kisses and crawling of your fingers up my skirt or on my stomach feel too real to be in a dream. Your skin feels just the same when we rub our noses together and your lips just as soft when you kiss my held hand lying in your bed. And when you look at me with your hand stroking my cheek and utter that phrase followed by my name, I believe you. I wake with your taste on my lips and your distant voice fading. I like the way it is now; relaxed, but my future has always scared me, and now it is even more empty than before. I have made some unfortunate realizations, but I am just going to have to live with them. You are my best friend, but I am too scared to talk to you anymore, and when I told you that my friends were all leaving I was reminded of an email you sent me once about her. You needed space from her, but still wanted to listen to her. I felt too close to that email, imagining you writing it to another girl you met somehow like me. I hope that was just fortune telling. I want to be like this, laid back, joking, but not all of the time. I still have my serious face. However, I want this more than anything, and it has always been based around how you feel. I am the ocean, but you are the breeze, and our boat has sails. Quote of the Day: ~"We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard."~ --Voltaire

My fingers feel hollow and look pretty as I text Ali; 'I don't know, I'm depressed, bipolar, whatever. No big deal, I'm invincible, of course.' But I know she will reply with her dose of healthy reality that I swallow down with a grimace, a feature that helps the mouth to salivate in order to rid itself of the horrid taste. I do this thing where I take huge breaths of air in order to somehow clean the horrible feeling in my gut and chest. It can only cure so much though. I wish it would just get rid of it all together. If it would be so kind as to do so, I would breathe everything away. He was in my first entry, and he will be in this one, he was in my thoughts then and is now. I have more stock in this. More. Stock. There was once a point in time when he and I exchanged emails, about love, it was during the spring, a year ago now. We were talking about love and how he wanted a love that lasts forever, a love that is always there, that will follow him to his grave, and I agreed in a manner that I did too. I secretly wished I could be it for him, and him for me. When I wrote those silly words about love, I wrote them because I thought of loving him as I did it. Maybe I can't do this anymore. I am so confused and frustrated and it is getting too crowded in my head, but my medication keeps me from taking a vacation. Please, please, please let me get what I want. And I thought maybe you had when you got me, but maybe I misinterpreted the whole thing anyway. Maybe you just need what you had before; a friend you fuck. I thought you were real when you told me the one good thing that came from that was that you realized what you wanted was me, but you keep turning around. This dizzy, dancing game is starting to wear me out. I think you are taking advantage of the fact that I will always be here, and that you know that. I wish I could make you feel the way I do right now. Not permanently or actually, just let you walk in my shoes for a while. Maybe it wouldn't even matter. I want to get back to where we were, but how long will it even last? Why am I the only one you have done this to? I feel anger rise in my chest as my heart speeds. Maybe if I was slut who annoyed the fuck out of you or if I started treating you like dirt you would care. This is all wrong. I can't even properly describe how I feel right now, my emotional gas tank is overflowing when I just want to be on E. I want you to fucking love me.. Goodbye. ~no quote.

I hand him his glasses from the set in shelf and ask for one more kiss. He leaves, leaving me his favorite blanket, a sweet gesture. I click my phone one last time, the digits read straight across and swipe at my eyes. Lying down in a strangely soft but boyishly rough blanket I let out a silent sob, enough to allow my lungs to fill with air once more before I try again to silence the tears. I snuggle into the blanket, smelling his scent as I start to calm and finally drift into a sleep. In the morning I wake in almost the exact position, my arms pulled tightly to my chest, a bit of blanket in my hand and over my shoulders. The sun is peaking in, and I can hear the bathroom door click as he steps in to shower. I hear a click once more, and then the door leading out close. I nestle back in and doze, waking again to his bright blue eyes with their specks of silver and his hand gently placed on my cheek. I move over some and he takes the space I leave. He kisses my cheek and then my lips. We doze some, close together, and wake to kiss more and speak to one another. Our kisses become more frequent and we begin to engage in that wonderful act we both so enjoy. He kisses my clavicle and the top of my chest as I swoon. Quote of the Day: ~"Hold fast to your dreams, for without them life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."~ --Langston Hughes