He's been watching her from the corner of his eye for the last twenty minutes. She's talking about her day and he's listening, but barely. He can't stop thinking how pretty she looks in this light, how her eyes glitter and her cheeks are glowing, how that not-quite-tight t-shirt hints at what he knows by now from memory--and yet it sparks his imagination nonetheless. By the time they get home he can't stand it anymore and he steps quickly around the front of the car, planting himself firmly between her and the door. When their eyes meet she knows what he wants, and he watches that moment of realization marked so cleary by the immediate smile that twists her pretty lips. It's a smile of anticipation, a smile of acknowledgement, and he knows that little dimple hidden in the right corner means she knows what he wants, but she'll make him ask anyway. He takes a step forwards and opens one arm, just barely breathing, "Hey," and suddenly that's request enough and she melts into him, and they kiss.

...but I'm going to say sorry anyway. I haven't written in what has to be months.

This is me pretending I shouldn't be held responsible for this if it's bad.


( Charlie on the roof )

The sadness comes like a rapid-fire sickness, a disease—it catches me, I feel it clawing at my chest, climbing up my throat; it scrapes at my neck and burrows into my skull, taps into my spine, paralyzes me body and soul. I have to catch it when it first begins—it originates in my chest and the only way to expel it is by breathing. I suck in a deep breath—I must trap the air in just the right place, in a deep pocket just below my sternum, where it bubbles up against my heart and touches the core of things. When I expel a sharp, short breath, it pushes the pins and needles out, casting the dirty brown static into the air and away from where it hurts most. Sometimes it takes only a couple breaths—sometimes, a thousand. But it is the only way to push it out; otherwise I spend the night clawing at my chest, trying to dig out my soul—free it. But that is an impossibility, and it only leaves one feeling all the more futile and wasted.

There's a bilboard near my house--I drive by it every day.

It says, "Honk if you're happy."

No one ever honks.

Make of that what you will.

I used to know how to find beauty in the world. I used to perch in high-up places and sun-speckled leaf beds of ancient unknown forest lore and I would look all around and see the every single perfection in every single place I looked and I knew it for all the wonderful miracles they were.

When did I stop seeing sunrays and moonbeams? When did the world turn to ugly shades of grey?

I used to know beauty when I saw it. I used to write amazing poetry about the stars and I used to spend all my time dreaming about the amazing things I knew with full certainty were--truly, truly were.

And then it all faded into the ugly fog of... what? Maturity? If this is adulthood I want nothing to do with it. I miss the everyday wonders, the empty hours and the haunted fairytales that happened every time I turned around. I miss standing on the edge of the mountaintop and thinking not of what would happen if my bones crashed against the bottom--

--but rather, imagining, as the wind blew against me, what would happen if it kept going, if it carried me up up up far above everything else and I finally rode the currents to the bliss I knew awaited me.

I always feel so embarrassed, apologetic. Like, I know I'm taking up your time, and I'm so sorry, and I hope to get out of the way and let you back to life as soon as I possibly can.

I think this may be why some people hate me.

I know it's definitely why I hate me.

I'm always so ashamed of myself. I don't know when or where or why I was taught this lesson, but I regret it and every time I think back on my childhood I get a very sharp pinch in my chest, like it's too hard to even contemplate. A lot of mistakes were made by all parties involved, and that's really all there is to have said, but it doesn't make it much easier to swallow afterwards if you know what I mean.

I feel like such an obstruction to everyone's lives, like I'm always in the way, literally or figuratively, or even metaphorically. I'm always just there, like a goddamn traffic cone or something, taking up perfectly good space and turning it into a massive obstacle to everyone's day.

It's not like I've never been happy, don't get me wrong. There are moments in life when I felt almost...

But then there's that word, almost. Because I never quite made it where I wanted, did I? I was always on the sidelines watching someone else take my place, happy for what I've done to get me to those sidelines, but still not in the spotlight, not on the podium, not holding the trophy--just fetching water for the one who did.

I'm miserable and totally resigned to my fate, and hardly through the majority of my years. It's far too early in the game to be calling it quits and yet here I am, looking back on life like it's all passed me by, like there's nothing I can do to change things and like everything has already crashed down around my ears.

And the band's just hardly begun to play.

...Right?

Hey Megan,


I know you've been reading this.

It's really cute, that you think I'm a threat worthy of watching.

I'm kind of flattered.

But with all the shit I'm dealing with in life right now, honestly, you really thought I deserved to get a little more?

Yeah... that's sweet of you, really.

But in the future, if you want to fuck with me, at least have the balls to do it to my fucking face, instead of running around behind my back stirring up a bunch of drama that I really don't have the mental capabilities to deal with right now.

And in the future, my entries will be entirely private, so you don't have to worry about living vicariously through me anymore.


Thanks,
You Know Who.