Cuckoo. There is a girl out there who thinks that I care. I haven’t cared since that first time she made me not want to care. Fool me four times, shame, shame on you, you fool. I stay around for the entertainment factor. My therapist says this is out of character. I say it is not when you consider how long I kept my old best friend around for. Walking psychological experiments. Push a few buttons and see if you can get the desired effect. See how long you can walk on eggshells before needing stitches. I find it interesting.

It’s the week of finals and if I could crawl under a rock and stay there for a while then everything could be fine. Everything will be okay anyways. It usually is. So what if I haven’t tried even half as hard as I could have. Or should have. I gave up a while ago and have merely been going through the motions since. This isn’t who I am. This isn’t even close to all I am capable of. Five out of six A’s is hardly an accomplishment. I should easily have had six out of six. This ain’t me.

The option exists plain as day. Arise each morning with the understanding that it could be the last. Quick and painless. It is the least mentioned form of suicide because it is the easiest and most effective. I mustn’t be alone in this realization. Am I alone in spending my waking hours aware of this? When will come the day that I’ve finally had enough? Having traveled far and long enough. When will I finally give in. Lay down and let it out. Watch the world speed by as a train wreaking havoc via sounds hitting our eardrums. Maybe now?

Confirmation that my father never killed himself because it’s against our religion. I fear killing myself and never seeing him again. But a natural death could be a lifetime from now. I haven’t the time or patience for all that. I want to go now. To let go. Fly flee of embodiment. I long for a death to call my own. Oh, wait, I have that. His death is my own. I was born again. I want to die again. Do I risk missing him? Losing him? Losing myself? Am I already lost? Isn’t he? Could dying be this easy?

The urge to light a cigarette overwhelms. I sense/feel my arm muscles twitching, reaching for the box that isn’t even there. My limbs don’t move. The feeling of shit, that’s right courses through my brain. My entire body desires to tear through the epidermis. Both the dog and I are miserably itchy. The idea of crawling out of my skin has never sounded so appetizing. I question the dog and his second hand addiction. I’m sorry if any of this is my fault. He understands me when I tell him not to worry. I only understand myself when everything’s wrong.

I simply have to quote some Sylvia Plath. You are twenty. You are not dead, although you were dead. The girl who died. And was resurrected. Children. Witches. Magic. Symbols. Remember the illogic of the fantasy. The strange tableau in the closet behind the bathroom: the feast, the beast, and the jelly bean. Recall, remember: please do not die again: let there be continuity at least – a core of consistency – even if your philosophy must be always a moving dynamic dialectic. The thesis is the easy time, the happy time. The antithesis threatens annihilation. The synthesis is the consummate problem.

Do you realize the illicit sensuous delight I get from picking my nose? I always have, ever since I was a child. There are so many subtle variations of sensation. A delicate, pointed-nailed fifth finger can catch under dry scabs and flakes of mucous in the nostril and draw them out to be looked at, crumbled between fingers, and flicked to the floor in minute crusts. Or a heavier, determined forefinger can reach up and smear down-and-out the soft, resilient, elastic greenish-yellow smallish blobs of mucous…. And she goes on about it. At length. She is amazingly everything I envy.

It only hurts when I turn my head left. (No, not my neck.) Twiddle dee and twiddle dumb. Twiddle thumbs. Scorched and black. Reaching in and wiping yellow flesh apart. But only if there’s still one left inside this cave I called a chest. Tell me where are you? Tell me where we go from here? MCRMCR. Love for them grows. Seeing them is always the best day of my life. Dreams cascade as real life fantasies. Just like up on the screen. Counting your face among the living. No elevator will lead to you. Empty puffs of fresh air.

Anxiety wins out, sometimes. This time. There are a myriad of reasons, perhaps excuses. Oh, but don’t worry. I’ll suffer through it again, and soon. It wasn’t so bad. Tolerable; bearable. Hopefully wasn’t luck. I’ll get it right next time. It’ll be better, possibly. Maybe I messed up. I don’t know. No, of course I messed up. Yeah I don’t even care. I can’t wait to cut my hair off. I think things will be better after that: we can’t know for sure until it’s done. One day, the world just might understand. Until then, it’s just me against them.

the mocking tick: A Life Is Passing. My Life. We all, at one point, wish to return to the womb. The only comfortable unknown. Alone and not, all at once. The purest form of life. Fresh new beginning, not yet tainted by societies yellow eye. The leer of death, the constant fixations. The unforgiving nature of our own selves. Is happiness even remotely possible in this form of life? This period of gestation. The only stage to living. Watching the world coldly shut you out on hot afternoons when you haven’t a care in the world. New beginnings loom near.

Imagine writing 1000 words everyday, never mind four pages. I’ve been reading The Journals of Sylvia Plath, wrapped within the syntax splayed before my prying eyes. Leering into the hurt of her soul, into her private thoughts. But we share the same inner world. We hold the same contentions. We existed as two separate people in different lifetimes but yet we experience much of the same. And oh, dear, our void. The gaping fixation we carry day to day, if understood by the masses they would surely stand astounded. There is no getting around the ugly lot we’ve been given.

The virgin page stymies creativity, if there were creativity to begin with. Deep wells that don’t exist will run dry. And the rain never lasts. Today becomes another yesterday in which healthy habits are not formed. Green pastures did not seed themselves. Good words will not write themselves, no matter how patiently you wait. At the end of everyday all that will remain is you. You are alone. Reading provokes fits of jealousy and fears of never writing a single word worthwhile. How did she do it? Can I do it? Well, can I do it again, and then again?

The morning met me with alarm. Or was it just my hair, standing on end, being the first sight seen? Immediate conceptions were not leading to the idea of that being me. It was I standing before the mirror. And I spied, with my eye, someone unknown to all. An entire life changed. Watch as the alterations begin to unfold. It all starts with a ripple and this was a tidal wave. Reinventing oneself is never an easy task though always desired. But it seems to simple. Just an illusion. Put the facade back up. Perhaps tomorrow will be different.

Back to school. Yes, yes I did just finish about 6 days ago. I fear the end. I fear a horrible science induced death. This is the kind of class that can push a madman over the edge. Just look at Sylvia Plath. I haven’t even finished reading that one book yet. I suck. I’ve finished longer books in two days. (Why do I have to cut my fingernails so often?) Every week will consist of being with these people for 700 minutes. Eleven hours and forty minutes a week. That is a long time. I hope I like it.

“Hi, you!”
“Oh hey! How’ve you been? It’s been awhile.”
“Yeah, it’s been a long while. You’re an elusive man: hard to capture, grasp or understand.”
“I’m here at all sorts of hours. I’ve been working on the barn, taking care of my goat the guys here bought me for Christmas.”
“Look, I cut my hair.”
“I noticed! It looks good.”
“Yeah? You think so? It is a lot of fun.”
“It’s a big change.”
“I’ve wanted to do it for years. Every once in awhile you just gotta take the plunge.”
“Kind of like how it is in love.”

“Screw love. I’m out.”
“I’ve been there.”
“I know it. I think I’m turning bitter.”
“I’ve been bitter.”
“But at least you’re old and bitter. I shouldn’t be young and bitter.”
“I learned late.”
“I’ve fallen victim again.”
“Another unrequited?”
“Another unrequited.”
“Some prey on the innocent, blindsiding them. Leaving you unsure that they did anything at all.”
“You’ve always gotten me.”
“I get the logistics heartbreak.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“You should come by more often.”
“Can I have my job back?”
[Insert awkward silence.]
“I mean, it’s just, everyone else you lost got there’s back.”
“I don’t need you.”

I’ve relearned another important lesson. It wasn’t my fault though. I genuinely thought it would be better this way. Looking back, I see that I was wrong. Once again, if you want something done right you’re better off doing it yourself. And here is how it will go down: I am going to look up instructions on the internet and I am simply going to teach myself how to change a bicycle tire. The tire defeated my brother who frankly was not doing a good job of teaching me anything. Then I will learn how to patch the other tube.

The account is overdrawn. Letters reveal answers. It is simple. Amounts taken exceed available resources. A carrying capacity exists. Rates of increase are abiotic. Payable funds collect dust amongst paper strangers waiting for organization. There is a mouth on a wall ready to accept gifts. The outcome could mean satiation. Instead, frozen, anxiety boils. Envelopes accumulate. Abysmal hells flame. Skeletons rot. Heads ache. Just go to the bank. Guilt, shock, abandon. Unfettered by monetary strings. It was a fragment. It shouldn’t happen. What can they do? Where can it go? Who will care if I dissipate into the night air?

Another instance of missing him: It happened a lifetime ago. He’ll return; it's been long enough. I forget he died – no homecoming. Unsure of fact/fiction. Fiction is true to life. Losing touch with reality; feeling fake. It's a story; I can change the ending. This isn't what was written. After effects of catastrophe echo into each new day. There’s no real forgetting. Being gone/being dead differ. I forget why he’s absent. Then I remember. It's tiring. All I want is to question. No valid sources exist. He was it. I miss him so much. I got robbed. Time is hell.

Riddled with anxiety, trembling like the inside of a tree trunk during a windstorm, my world begins to shake. I had a flat tire. Stopped dead; useless. Kill me now, it is time. Teach me now, the ways of your people. Bruises form upon my heart from beating against my breastplate. Swollen and sore. One hopes for a staph infection to put an end to the torment.

The end is near. A sign seen. A nap taken. One day we’ll all be okay.

Naps are the kinds of things fluffy clouds are made of. Only the softest most delicate experience.

I have to play catch up and I don’t want to. I think I will indeed call this writers block. Actually, no, it should be called being busy with school and unable to make or let myself write. Write anything at all. I write nothing. It’s okay. Everything is all right. Or will be. Trust and believe. They are just words and I need to merely form them and arrange them and twist them to say the things I wish to say. What do I want to say? The first lines to stories are the easiest for me to write.

I have a dead dad chord that is sometimes strummed by outside sources. No one understands how this pain can come on as an onslaught of chaos, from out of seemingly nowhere. Sometimes the leaves align in certain patterns that force me to miss him oh so much. I’m a little girl, sent to the corner by my feared father, afraid to move or cough. Not even Chinese water torture could change my mind. But what happens when I don’t want to do any of this anymore? Can I collapse to the floor into the pile of hurt I am.

You know you’re in for a world of trouble when a professor calls a test fun. God help us all. I have to do well, I will accept no less. It is merely the hardest semester of my life being followed by the hardest class ever. No big deal. It builds character, right? It’ll all be worth it in the end, right? I’ll do fine, right? Fuck off. Oh, shit, I haven’t yet mentioned the best news of my life:

I GOT SIX A’s for this past semester. SIX!!

Although, one should be a B, but professors are highly subjective.

Eight o’clock classes mean no me time in the morning. I don’t even get to finish a whole coffee. Definitely no time to eat. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I eat half a poptart as I walk to class. The only people I like in this class is the professor and my lab group people. But I don’t make it easy for them to like me. I have become a pretentious condescending pompous jackass. It’s the hair, I swear. It has changed my entire perspective of myself. I spend far too much time staring in mirrors.

If I have to get something done we can know that I will first find the most complicated way to do it. If a sign says wet paint do not touch rest assured that I will touch it, no matter how shiny and fresh it looks. If I feel lazy I will often go to great lengths to avoid a task I choose to work around. Walk three miles or change a tire? I recall wishing for a flat tire so I could practice my new ability, but I meant a front tire. That would be so simple and fun.

Another wasted day and no lab report written. I did a ton of nothing today. Complete lack of motivation for no reason at all. I spend so much time thinking about writing. I’ve been writing these 100 words for a year now. That’s equivalent to a novella’s worth of words. I’ve written a novel though, so this novella is nothing. My short stories are better. If I had a job I bet that I would be a much more productive member of society. Right now I am useless and I know it. So I add to it, making it worse.

A flush of liquid crashed to the pavement. The gas station attendant overfilled a customer’s tank. Panic stricken, but fast acting, he grabbed a bucket of water and strategically poured it on the car. The driver, on a cell phone, seemed oblivious, classy, and possibly on his way to a fraudulent business meeting. A working class hero is something to be. One man working a dead end job to survive and the other man using available resources at the expense of others without consideration for their plight. One has to wonder who the winner will be in the ultimate end.

The mourning dove coos incessantly. What are we to do? My fingers in my ears. Nineteen months is an eternity when measured in grief. Corners of my world fold in on themselves. My life, as a book, permanently dog-eared, always leading to the day he died. I cough, to expel the sickness, only to realize this is no sickness. This is reality, as healthy or unhealthy as it may be. I want to say goodbye. Goodbye, I’m sorry. He needs to know I will miss him with every ounce of all that I am. You know I love you, right?

I don’t wanna care anymore, about a lot of everything. I want to be indifferent, for always. But if grades didn’t matter would I still have good ones? Is there a correlation? I wonder if I work harder with him dead because I fear he’s watching everything. Or would I have worked harder if he lived because I would be sharing it with him. I wish he were here. I would give up good grades to have him here. I would rather tell him all about some bad grades just because it would mean that he were here to tell.

I did not cry while accompanying you, a car behind, during your last drive. Your body lay, stiff, not taking in scenery. The cemetery gates already open, waiting for you, anticipated with a hole in the earth. Cypress trees wept. I wept alongside, watching as you were heaved from the vehicle, into an enclosed room with stained glass. Never again will our eyes meet. A covering over the coffin declares: it’s over. The room teemed with mourners. My white shirt stood out, ahead of the rest, nearest you. Fighting, I refrained from climbing in. I wanted to go too, daddy.

Desperate for words and becoming more aware that they will not conjure up themselves. I’ll always remember that time in my life during which I was a real and true writer. I’ll probably have it back, some day. Just not today and more than likely not tomorrow either. When I least expect it, it will come. And it will be great. Oh, I keep forgetting something. Maybe there’s a reason I forget? Regardless, I think I would really like to become a nun. I believe I could find happiness in it. And spare time could be spent in pure contentedness.