Eleven p.m.

I cried through much of the second half of heaven tonight. I cried before dinner (but not mine) and after. And if you’re reading this, I may have cried for you. I can’t be entirely sure who you are as I’m still quite clueless as to who I am, but it may have been you. If it was, I’m sorry and I love you.

I used to think all I had to do was find myself, but that was back when there was a me to find. Now I think I might be a series of masks that cover nothingness in its entirety, but perhaps that wouldn’t be such a tragedy. I’m not sure nothing is such a bad thing to be.

The shadow of my hand on the window is giant, as though it was significant, which it may be. Perhaps the shadow is more important than the words are. The words give body to the shadow, but the shadow holds more than just my pencil.

I see a heart on my mirror in washable marker, drawn by a dear friend I would hate to lose. The flower above it is mine, an almost-useless attempt to make early mornings a little bit cheerier. An actual flower might have been helpful. The drawing of a ten year old? Not so much, I’m afraid.

I envy the one who can still sing children’s songs without drawing laughter, the one who can still sing in the shower and dance when they aren’t covered in darkness. Because they say dance like no one is watching, but people are. I never could avoid or deny that. This would be my downfall were I a tragic hero(ine) in a Greek play.

Sometimes the seconds are hours, and sometimes the days are just moments, and as soon as I think I’ve got it all figured out, the pattern changes and I have to relearn everything I thought I knew. No, not relearn old knowledge, but absorb new knowledge and try to smush the old into even smaller little spaces in the back of my memory.

Only the love and the joy seem to fall through the holes in my memory, although thank god not all of it disappears. I might not be able to bear it without a few happy pictures in my mind when things start going wrong. But I still lose so much of what I’m dying to remember, what I scramble for for hours on end, but often can’t retrieve for a million reasons, not one of them a good one.

Oh, there’s such beauty I see that I never could see before, beauty encompassed in all I never knew. And I hope every day that your beauty won’t fade, and I see it grow brighter every time you return. It’s still hard to tell the difference between you brightening and me dimming, but ever so slowly, I’m getting there.

There’s a delicate balance between being assertive and not causing pain, and choosing to err on the latter side may well be what’s destroying me. If every time I touch someone is like a knife in their heart, I’ll keep away despite the cost to me. But I wish I wouldn’t. I wish I had the strength to make the right decisions – not all of them, but the iron ones – for me but I don’t and I can’t.

Don’t. Can’t. Don’t. Can’t. Don’t say ‘can’t.’ You always can. Kindergarten teachers say so many lies without really thinking about it. I wonder if they think it helps us or if they’re just trying to make that days’ work a little bit easier. Maybe both. Maybe neither. I don’t really think the mysteries of the elusive kindergarten teacher, from her constant smile to her odd enthusiasm for colors and Tuesdays, are ours to solve. Not in this generation, at any rate.

She’s still up and on the computer, and for one it’s not me who’s addicted to the game. Instead of playing solitaire or switching jewels to make sets, I’m writing here by a booklight because I’m afraid if I turn on the light, too much will become visible. Things I don’t want to know, I think. Why is it her this time instead of me? How did I end up pouring my soul out when I can barely sit up instead of doing what I do every night?

It must have been the tears that drove me to such madness, for there is no other explanation for it. My crying monkey pillow is right here just in case, but my eyes are so dry there’s no way I could cry. Every time I think that, or so it seems, I end up being wrong.

It’s ridiculous how many of my thoughts I share that I shouldn’t. I linger under a canopy of delusion, the main umbrella fantasy being that people are actually interested in what’s going on in my head. They say they are, but everyone with a smidge of feelings does. It’s one of those required rituals like the hugs and love-your-dresses at homecoming with every girl you barely know because it makes her feel a little bit better inside. Believe me, I know.

It’s even harder to tell the fakers when you’re close to them because not only have they learned how to best fool you, you know they wouldn’t hurt you on purpose, so they have this awful but confidence-boosting habit of lying. I’m pretty sure everyone does it.

Stargrl