redefinition and transmutation are the reasons for my existence.

I'm fading, aren't I? This is what it feels like to be forgotten.

She moves in a disguised dance with the taste of clean--which is no taste at all--on her tongue. Improvised conversations and gestures leave her body in swift rushes while she feels her heart beating twice the speed of a hummingbird's wings. Her mouth empties itself in wafts of smoke and breath. Her name is Ramsey, and she is only nineteen years old. She chants to herself, "breathe breathe breathe. in out in out." She has limbs pale as clouds on days of dry heat and lips painted the color of red clay earth shaped in a soft heart, with a small gap between the top and bottom lip in the very middle where her yellowed teeth tend to peak out. Those teeth are straight, but discolored by excessive contact with tobacco.


BLAH BLAH BLAH SAME OLD SHIT.

asdfghjkl;'
';lkjhgfds

for real.

First uses during the past two days:
-public bus
-taxi
-emergency contraception

bloody hell. BLOODY HELL.

what the fuck am I doing?

Dear Babies,

You know I couldn't hurt you if I tried. There isn't a single fiber in my body that makes me wish ill upon you. Who knows what it would even take for me to speak those words I cannot speak, to feel those emotions I cannot feel. I can still taste you on my lips, in between my teeth like gritty earth stuck beneath the very tips of my fingernails. I am the watery glue that you wear like a second skin, like the flimsiest of armors. I am the thread which has been stitched between both ends of your wound, and why would you use me to sew things shut? Why not break me, just to see if you can spread the world wider at the ends? I want to give you the best of me, the parts I've yet to break and just maybe the parts I already have. Maybe you can salvage this broken spirit I have inside my pupae. I'm no pretty thing to look at, and I never will be. Heaven forbid, please, that I lose my substance. Sometimes you have me wondering, sometimes wishing I could shave off all of my hair just to start over. But I've heard it time and time again: you repeat your mistakes until you learn to fix them. In the end, the question is more what wouldn't I do... for you?

p.s. Why do I bother writing these vague letters when no one really cares? They accomplish nothing.

Here's something I wrote in my journal today:

I have these
wounds

I've sewn them up
but I've also
torn them open again

they don't seem to
want to heal

but they need to

and soon
because

I'm losing life
and my heart it
infected

maybe someday
they will finally
close up

I feel that
I can't avoid
the scars

but even scars will
face

it's just the
memories
I will be left
with that

may never fade
at all

and maybe that's
enough


I've been coming to terms with a lot of things lately, and life is going to get better--I know it will. God is there for me. I know that God always will be. I've been saved from so much pain, so much suffering, and it's no gift. I've worked hard for my own salvation, but it's God that's given me the chance to earn it, I know. Maybe this is the time to break my fall and avoid hitting the bottom of the pit I began to fall into many moons ago. I'm no saint, and I never will be. I am kind as much as I care to be, and because I care so much, that's quite a bit. I'm not vain, and I never will be. A little vanity doesn't hurt, but it's just one of those things that I lack. One day I will be confident, and today is a great starting point to work my way up to that. It's a beautiful day, still dark and quiet. Soon the birds will wake.

I've been struggling with my symptoms. It's a problem, which I fully intended to remedy, and immediately. No more will I be a slave to my own destruction. I am a survivor, and I will walk through this just as I have walked through my battles before. This is a time for peaceful resistance, not brute strength. There is a middle ground, and I will find it.

I will never forget any of you. I will wear you on my sleeve, proudly and with dignity serving as my guide. I will express every bit of my joy as if it is the crux of my center itself. Happiness is only a laugh away from me, and I will find it by any means.

It seems I am always on the verge of tears these days. I hope life will always be this meaningful.

Watery fears
unknown
unneeded

touched
and undeserving

oh lawd.

work work work work work.

why do I feel like that is all
I am doing?




I miss y'all so much.
Especially you.

I need to be healthy again. I can't stand myself when I'm not.

I am tired of letting myself go. I will get my aunt's bike and eat less shit.

I can do this I can do this I can do this.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Every eating disorder I've ever had makes me hate myself.

Why did I think this would be any different?

I have this great idea for a literary style, nicknamed "parallel portraits." I'm actually really excited about it. This is probably just a practice run... I'll get the style down later, I'm sure.



I am unbuttoning my skirt in an over-perfumed restroom with flickering lights. The air is singed with smoke despite the no-smoking sign clipped to the outside of the door. I examine the the carelessly scraped knee and various scratches I have gained. The movement in the mirror catches me by surprise, and as I button my skirt back up, I nervously lock my gaze with that of my reflection.

In a miniaturized apartment on the top floor of a skyscraper complex, a woman fixes herself a fifth gin-and-tonic. She looks forlornly into the eyes of a photograph, knowing now that the glow around herself was not good health but pregnancy. Those twinkles in her eyes were not good cheer but the promise of what was to come. What was supposed to come. What never came. She unthinkingly slips her hand under her own shirt to softly feel across a rigid scar stretching across her abdomen.

I walk outside of the brightly lit diner and towards my car. I realize my keys are locked in the car, resting peacefully in the ignition. I swear and curse myself for my foolishness.

She walks to the fridge and pulls out more gin and ice from the freezer. The ice crackles along with her voice in sharp sobs as she pours the liquor over it and into the pewter cup. She is cursing God for his all-knowing manipulation.