March & April, 2025

calm, sentimental mood

april 30th, 2025

impossible to think that it’s the end of the month. i am outside adjusting my posture. the cold is freezing off my hands, and i have a class in less than ten minutes. i should pee before that. i’ve gt no time to write. there’s a magpie in front of me, watching people come left and right to the front office. i’ve sat here a million times before. probably nine or ten times, really. maybe more than that. once, in the cold, when i was waiting for you, it got dark; you came from behind me. that’ll be here somewhere. my hair is half-straightened. i don’t know what i was thinking this morning, having it in a ponytail. dad’s coming to get me to go to french at the end of the day. i had a really pleasant morning. i was reminded that it’s not as serious as i’d like it to be, and it doesn’t matter about the evening. i was drinking a hot chamomile tea, something that i am going to do now more often, and it wasn’t cold yet. i’d finished walking the dogs. i was holding the tea to my lips and smelling it, keeping it in my mouth. i imagined where the flowers were taken from. i imagined a meadow and felt transformed

i am happy for it to be getting much colder. tomorrow will be the start of may, and everything is going to lose it’s obvious charm. i am going to have to search for it. furrow in the bottom of my bag for a pair of plyers to inspect the blooms. that’s all right. i am used to that, and i can remember what it was like to not know what existed during the winter. but there are lots of things. there’s ample time to be alone, lots of clothes to pile on and jackets to wear over the top of school uniform, hands to be held with gloves rubbing against fingers, words that mean more because they’re spoken less. i love the cold. i do not love how it feels to be here with it. we are two forces co-existing, mouth-to-mouth

episode 1: near narcolepsy

april 29th, 2025

i am going to fall asleep in this class. it’s my last class of the day and i am waiting for people to pour into the classroom but for now there is no one, nothing, and i have time to write, so i will. i have already texted my mum to tell her that my eyes are winding shut. i am praying she brings food with her to the ride home. today has been one long terror. homework in no classes, but tasks regardless, trying to keep my eyes open. i slept for nine hours last night, so i shouldn’t feel this way. yet i am truly losing it. i feel like i can’t concentrate and everything’s a blurry disaster. last night i fell asleep without a care, my phone untouched on the other side of the room. i can’t think of anything i hate right now aside from being here. i keep misspelling words on the white-board. evil things will happen to me if i don’t get this out. i am not ready to lose everything that keeps me happy. i feel like i’m in one big dream. when will the passion wear out? is it this moment? oh, someone wake me up. my eyes will open. my fingers will twitch and move. the bomb won’t go off. it’s all the same. i’m repeating phrases i love. do you really think about me at all? i am not a conspiracy theorist, i won’t give you the facts, i am good at my job but my job isn’t in this classroom

school tomorrow

april 28th, 2025

[redacted] slept over last night, and now i am waiting for [redacted] to come over for a bit. i don’t want to write anything today. i am feeling flat and uninteresting. i am wondering if there’s any way i can avoid school going back tomorrow. it’s difficult to process why i feel this way. i should feel regenerated but i don’t. i feel cold. my clothes are still crumpled in a pile from two weeks ago. i don’t feel like a genius. and yet i will be in that building tomorrow, my hands on my thighs, my shoes tapping together at the end of the chair, leg shaking beneath my skirt, jumper sleeves over my knuckles, typing away. this always happens. there’s nothing i can do or say

it will happen

april 27th, 2025

there are lots of things i can say at any time, but for some reason i don’t. for some reason, and to it i yield to bigger forces than i can say, i keep the nicer words to myself. [redacted] made me a journal and gave it to me today. today we were on my floor and i sat between her legs, the back of my head on her chest, her chin against my ear, and i read my favourite book to her, turning the pages, stuttering, her inner-thighs quivering. i thought about bending back to kiss her and i didn’t. we watched an old horror movie in my bed, tangled in sheets and i stroked her hair until my fingers were gone in it. i put my head on her stomach and she told me what she is going to do when she gets home, order-order-order, step-by-step as i like. she’s learning. i nearly fell asleep on her there. i could have. we made flower jars for each other with no flowers, walked up and down my street to scour for little flowers to stick into our pieces of paper, just above our outlined vases. i will put her flowers stuck into the journal she bound for me. when i took her to the door i thought we might kiss, but we didn’t. she walked away in the dark and i shut the door on her. she called me and told me she would like to kiss me. i said, “it will happen”

good and bad people

april 26th, 2025

on the way to the airport squeezing a chai latte between my inner thighs, scalding even through my jeans. the car is so boring until it’s not. there’s always vacancy in travel, like you belong to no place where you’ve come from or where you’ll be because you’re not in it. still, that’s a nice feeling. you just play your music and get on with it all. so what if you’re feeling a little bit tired and you’ve been acting not yourself? you’re not wasting anybody else’s time. isn’t that right? well, i don’t know everything. i just know it doesn’t matter to me what anybody else does as long as i know it was intentional. i can’t stand accidents, misunderstandings, coincidences. it’s easier to try and understand someone’s deliberate actions even when they are cruel or insensitive towards you because it’s easier to understand hate with a purpose. we all do it. it’s harder to know why things might just be the way they are without any cause or effect or purpose to them, they just happened and now you have to deal with them without a hazy sense of their miscalculation. i’m spending this car ride the easy way. choosing my music and sitting pin-straight and drinking chai and watching from the window at all the other lives that i’m a stranger to. is there a remedy besides curious isolation and meditation which will cure that loneliness of seeing people have more energy than you?

on the hike we didn’t listen to any music and now i am listening all day and night. i forget how good it feels in your body to hear something you’ve never heard before. conversation can’t normally do that to you, unless it’s with poets or your best friend. music is like one big question you’ve been waiting for someone to ask you your whole life; you finally feel interesting instead of demanding. when i get home i will make a list of things to disallow from entering my life. tomorrow night is the new moon and it always makes me feel delightful when things line up with life and the moon phases. school will resume in two days time and i will set my intentions around that. a jeffrey epstein victim has committed suicide today and it’s on the news station. i don’t think i ever thought bad things happen to bad people, not even when i was really small. it’s always unfair and unlucky, more times than not it is the bad things that happen to good people and the good things that happen to bad people. i can’t offer any good explanation for that

on my mother’s birthday

april 25th, 2025

my mother is another year older and is still feeding me. hasn’t given up yet. it’s anzac day and the ice cream truck goes by, promising nothing to me anymore or my brother. just a nice sort of being there, thank you for not being gone yet, but be gone soon. i’m growing up. all that. this year we are not on an island together drinking cocktails and i cannot look at a wall and feel peaceful, i cannot read as much as i used to pretend that i could, but that was last year and this is this year and this year we are in a house on the coast that’s not ours or apparently anybody’s. there are three-year expired protein bars in a tea container. theo and i eat them and my stomach cramps and i don’t sleep for hours. my makeup’s all scattered on the counter and i’m trying something new, it’s just a new look; it’s nothing important, nothing i want you to notice. but please, can i dye my hair? can i make it look like hers, like a tall snowy mountain dried at it’s scalp, melting away into nothing. can it be thick? it’s fine. it’s fine. it won’t matter in the morning. one day it will all look how i want it to. and i’m busy today, busy playing card games with my mother and nestling under a rug while they manage somehow, busy writing and listening in from far away as the wicker basket is delivered and a yawn drives god away. i promise i’m not bored, i’m just waiting for somebody to play. maybe my girlfriend if she wasn’t such a secret, i’d call her here and we’d rustle around in the duvet and we’d eat each other’s mouths off with sharp teeth and bones pointed to fight but we never do, i make it go away. it’s nothing, just a little cut that needs me to say “i don’t know why we can’t just get along”. but i know, and soon we’ll bite each other’s mouths off. i’ll be at the kitchen counter, straddling her with my legs like we do, like i know we will, and then i’ll have to tell my mum. i’ll have to tell people what i’ve been up to all this time. lots of thinking about lots of love and none of it sent but i can promise you i'm getting older, i'm growing

i want i want i want

april 24th, 2025

i am listening to nick drake and i want to watch movies all day in the dark without it hurting my eyes. maybe blueberries will help; the ads say that. i wish this feeling that the weight of the world was resting on my shoulders was not so strong. my eyes tickle my eyelids when i shut them and i want to die a hundred times and come back to life tomorrow

the drive

april 23rd, 2025

i feel as if i make the world go round in my red bralette and tight singlet, my flannel shirt that hangs off my arms as i pick up op-shop items and marvel at them constantly. my corded earphones are in a perfect tangle, just one in my ear as the other swings as i walk. my makeup’s perfect today, no flaky skin. i am easy to fondle but full at the same time. i know that if [redacted] saw me right now, she’d lick her teeth, her tongue beneath her upper-lip, and want to hold me on the way there and back, to the store where i buy nothing and nuts, to the mountains where i’ll drive us for easter sunday, no church

light me on

april 22nd, 2025

earth day today, my parent’s anniversary also, and we climbed through a cave. driving to our next location now and my leg wants to shake. i don’t mind consuming lots of media in small bursts when i am writing for the rest of the time, but i hope one day i wont feel the need to watch or read anything at all unless i want to. today [redacted] asked me about my boundaries. i told her that i will do anything, and she said that i confuse her. i apologised but i am confused, too. i wish she understood about liking and loving. i am bringing her into my games. that’s all really nice and exciting, but i miss [redacted]. best friends have no competition. i hope she knows that. i hope it will never be complicated again. is that so strange? i’m sick of all this nonsense about music, and listening to it. i wish it were all enough to seep into my pores and then i’d hear it all at once, know what it was for. i am listening to cornelia murr. her voice sparkles. so obsessed with voices lately. does mine sound okay? not when singing, but with talking. maybe it is with watching so many movies. i hope there is somebody who thinks i have a lovely sounding voice, and not just because they know me and like the sound of it, but if they heard me in a store talking at the other end of the aisle to somebody on the phone, they’d think, music to my ears. just like that, i’m trying not to be quiet but i find that when i talk too much, i get angry too much. people expect too much from people who will talk to them without breaks, and suddenly you are responsible for not wasting their time. i don’t know who my happiness belongs to, but today it doesn’t believe in it’s creator. it just sits quietly mumbling on the intercom, “do this. do that. feel better”. i am not hungry and i don’t want to play myself anymore

swim at the beach

april 21st, 2025

we swam in a different ocean today than usual and i played chess outside the café with my brother. i ate chips and felt not that hungry. a blueberry smoothie filled me up. the hunger will come. just as it always goes. i was excited to come home so that i could crawl into bed again and write, rub my feet and play joan baez. i’ve been writing a lot, and not feeling sea-sick. that’s nice. it will end, too. but i am enjoying this brief period of not total ease, but ability. i can write in a way that i wasn’t able to a year ago, or even six months ago. i am always getting better. the more i write, the more i can be

fancy drinks

april 20th, 2025

it’s my brother’s birthday today. we’re all drunk. me, less than them. we hang out on the deck and my mum falls for it. i have a jumper i wear everywhere now, in and out of the shower, i stumble bathroom to bedroom to be better than an audience of people. i show off but i don’t mean to. i give gifts but they’re not good; i think they are but they’re not. i smile anyway as i hand it to people. that’s what they’ll remember, right? when your parents tell you things as a child, you expect them to be true and to matter, like they tell you it’s true and it matters. like, how it’s important to smile. you forget that not everybody was told that. it’s not true for everyone what’s important. you learn that from them, too, when they forget to smile or to run their mouth or to slash their wrists or to sharpen their pencils or to polish the wood or to tell you goodnight. it’s all the same. i’m smiling as i write it even, even like i am not in disbelief or shock. you’d not believe me if i told you how i’d feel ahead of time, and that i can play that guessing game in competition for my life. if i lose, i’m already as inattentive as before

nobody does know a thing about me if i haven’t told it to them, and i tell you a lot. but is it the truth? i always wonder if i am actually a parent who lies, if i will be somebody who cannot cook a dinner for their friends, if i will be a person who offers to cook dinner for their friends, if i will help look after my parents, if i will have enough energy to write letters and light my candles and go to sleep in my own bed at night without getting lipstick on the white pillows

the hugeness of it

april 19th, 2025

i’m worried i will not be able to capture the hugeness of life. it’s been a while since i’ve been perky like this, but i’m being quiet about it. there’s lots of stinging in my throat when i am trying to sleep, but there used to be song. i am trying to read, to get well, to learn more, to do more instead of being distracted. but i get tired easily. overwhelmed before i can reach for the words to describe what’s happening to me, and i do not want to grab anything with shaky hands. it is far more embarrassing to astoundingly all-of-a-suddenly have what you need—everybody sees and marvels, and you feel on top of the world—but then carelessly let go of it when you feel the world has turned it’s back to you, than to simply admit to your defeat, and to turn the other way. but i can never do that. i have too much dignity. too much self-seriousness to not wait at the table afterwards, rocking back and forth on my heels, thinking that perhaps i will be served dessert in due time. i am not lucky enough. but that is the luckiest thing of all. i never asked for any of this, but something happened to me; many things happened when i was small and i choose the questions that most amount to curiosity, not to answers. i’m not silly for hoping there’d maybe be something bigger and brighter out there for me, but i am also not sure enough to entertain that kind of thing anymore. i am too deep in hugeness

writing on the deck

april 18th, 2025

i love my girlfriend. i love when things are good with us. i love that we’re going slowly. i love that when i’m out on the front deck writing madly she is on the other side of the country looking through my old posts, sending screenshots and captions of what she thinks about them. i love that she’s jealous, that i’m jealous, that i want her, that she wants me. i love that she’s honest. that she called me laughing when after walking me to the bus, a guy in a random group of men approached her and asked for her phone number, and when i was worried, biting my bottom lip on the other end of the phone, she said loudly i told them no, before even hearing me hesitate. she just wanted me to know. i love that things haven’t happened yet; every interaction feels like progress

i ate a bowl of cereal out here before, sucked on the spoon, wrote a poem. it was a slow morning, and a bad night. there were bunnies on the front lawn when i pulled upon the curtains. i woke up at six in the morning despite the fact that the hike is over now, and i should have slept for longer. i had a rough night of sleep, too, tossing and turning; too hot. i slept topless. i watched yellowjackets on the couch for a long time, then lazily took a shower and washed my hair. i brought too little clothes. mum has promised to take me shopping tomorrow, when we’ve settled into the new nice place. that will be fun. we don’t often go non-consignment store shopping these days, unless to target. anyways. i have been doing nothing. i am waiting for [redacted] to text me back. i am nervous. i am churning. i am uncomfortable. there are people i need to thank, but i am not near them. it’s never the right time to say anything over the phone. it’s always right in real life; honesty is never not worth it

feet hurty : beer near

april 17th, 2025

the walk is done now. i’ve showered and am waiting to play pool with theo. it’s cold outside but i am wearing a small top and i have poorly-applied lipstick on. i am thinking about how i haven’t even sat behind the steering wheel of a car yet, and don’t really know when i will

thirty hours is a pretty good portion of time to be doing nothing else except walking. all i seemed to think about during that time was silly things, or things of a nothing-esque quality. today i thought about what to get [redacted] for her birthday. i am thinking of “booking us” (reserving our airbnb for a couple of days) into my beach house, printing out the receipt and sticking it into a card. that way, if she doesn’t have her p’s by then, we can just catch the train, but at least we’ll actually have a weekend carved out. i thought about the black labrador belonging to my host family that died when i was on exchange. i thought about how when it rained i messaged my host mum to ask if i could bring her inside, and when she told me that i could, i thought about what i did. i let her into the shed, got her a towel from upstairs, and dried her off. she was blind. she couldn’t see me. but i put the towel over her head and squeezed her ears, squeezed her fur around her neck and then i threw the towel down. i gave her a treat, then i felt bad to leave her downstairs. then she died some weeks later. not from the cold. she was sixteen. she was ready. but i thought about how alive she was when i rubbed her ears with the towel, and how alive she was when her tail was thumping against her whole wet body

why do i choke on my answers?

april 16th, 2025

dad asks me about you. i get defensive. it’s all right, right? i talk. not quietly, passionately, but eyebrows furrowed. he should know more about me. more about my life. i shouldn’t have to tell him all this. but then he says, “sometimes i feel as if i am sick of myself. not that i hate myself, but that i am tired of not having a brain to shut off,” and i am seen! i nearly cry. i don’t. i’m strong and i know it. we’re walking together in the dry heat looking for a lunch spot, and i’m not crying. i’m thinking many things, and i tell him that i’m dating [redacted]. we keep it quiet. i act like i know nothing. is there something wrong? no. no, not a damn thing. just a beat in my step, a hiccup that won’t come, a non-buzzing phone

highlight from the walk

april 15th, 2025

highlight today: starting the walk i am miserable with rejection, busy thinking of all my losses, the earlier one of the day—no volunteer work for me—how it seems that when i try for the things i badly want that require some extra oomph, i am never successful. my brother catches up with me. i say something of my ails, can’t hide it quite. i’d thought the walk would repair me, but you cannot walk angry. question after question, it feels like we go through the colors of the rainbow. my responses to his many prompts: “it’s just awful. i just feel awful. i feel unsuccessful. it feels like things won’t work out. nothing’s good for nothing. it’s just awful.” and theo asks, “so what’s the problem?” i say almost instantly, “nothing.” we laugh and laugh and laugh. i realize how unserious it is. i have not a thing to worry about. i just have seven hours to walk

first day of hiking

april 14th, 2025

my feet are killing! i am sunburned all over my chest and shoulders. lots of things are sore. today we walked from the inland down into the coast, and then up into the bush-scrub again. the beaches here are beautiful. they are filled with families of young parents; a beautiful mum in a flowy dress, a surfer dad with his wetsuit half-off, chasing two blonde beach babies on the soft sand, roaring waves behind them. i thought once or twice today that i wished i sounded and looked like those sorts of people. they are unworried, tanned, radically calm tall people. i am short and pale and want to live in the woods and write until i am calm, meaning i am not calm. i am worried. it’s funny. i’m not angry. it was just a passing thought. so many ideas about how building a family will be; not junkyard, not violent, not fantastic. but i hope it will be nice, that i will like my children and my partner and the place that i live. today everything is sore and i am trying to build some sort of future. i am busy thinking about lots of things, like noises. i am so focused on keeping track of the present moment that i am lost in what is not the present moment. i have to get dressed now, swallow my dignity, and go to dinner and drink something

it only takes a three hour car drive

april 13th, 2025

how to describe last night to you? the early morning? drinking won’t solve the noise. it’s nearly never enough, or too much. i eat sushi and pray under the table, hands together, fingers fighting to interlock. my sweet spot is a meditative conscience, writing without breaking, stepping off the ledge and into your arms. i’m not a romantic. i am busy thinking about all the things i’m doing wrong as the things around me move in hive-like arms, bracket me, surely. later on i am going to rest and think about tomorrow. i’m not going to use my phone. i’m going to play chess and watch a movie with my family. later on i’m going to be delightfully sweet; sickly so. they’ll choke on me. i never say anything they want to hear. i worry about that. they’re fine afterward but i know they must think i’m not going to be what i want to be. my hair’s acting insensible. we watched the hunger games last night. good lord, i’m getting older. the time doesn’t slow into nothing, no matter how nicely i ask it to. i always need to pee no matter how long i hold it. all the water that has ever been here, is here now, and will be forever; transformed or transferred, it lives and breathes. it dances to all the same songs as i do

all the same songs have all the same melodies, doesn’t matter how different they beg to be. i’m transformed, too. i’m movement and a fluttering underbelly. i’m wanting to be changed, to be better; to write better and make my teachers happier. to never get a low mark again, to never fight with anybody or look angry. but i am all of those things. they’ve happened, and surely will come up again in the water i drink or the water i piss out or cry out or dance out. it doesn’t matter. it never has

normal airport experience

april 12th, 2025

who are you of all people? do you know who i am wanting to sleep with? do you daydream my same daydream? am i only wine-drunk enough to tell the stag from the beating heart? and where does this soul exit to when the music thunders loud and charged like an angel whose wings have been cut from cardboard. cut from cloth. i am the game. i am no master. i am your board to play upon, move your pieces carefully, carefully now. now not the instant, now not then. now, like the grape that squeezes bloody in your mouth, frying it’s roof. hot like you. reading and the words are better than mine; it makes my brain whirl. how could you do this to me? how could i be waiting here again? how i could i be mistaking this for then? make no mistake, i’m not living like a king. i’m not living like an empty body, a bag of ashes, a fireplace made all summer. i’m not breaking free; the music’s just as creepy as it ever was. i’m just as apologetic as i can weep, and that’s not at all these days. earth itself rumbles beneath me, clouds tremble as i pass them by, ruin their faces with mine, scalding in the window-seat (and so what?), food is delivered to my tray table; a grey hungry feast, but still i don’t cry. i can’t bring anything to myself more than i used to talk to the cracks in my hands. this is a way of living, not a world i’d want to live in

my use of force

april 11th, 2025

i will stay a person who is good at loving. i hope that means something one day. many people can take or give it, so many are bad at both. love is waiting for it’s truth to be contested, changed, irreparably altered and debated; it is propaganda. meaning applies between the people, not the feeling. today i gave my returned letter to [redacted], after thinking perhaps i had nothing to say in return. there’s always good to be restored between cracks of hostile nothing; that is impurity. if essentialism is the truest philosophy, and we are all born after essence’s application to us, not the existentialist creation of it’s definition, i am in many ways constantly destined to meet my most human nature; to be soft and hard, loving and hateful, both and neither, man and woman, infinite and ending, mother and child, alive and dead. the cat is both inside the box, but we will not open it for lifetimes. who said a project may not take much time, but it may take a lifetime? life is the project. it is all time and no time at all; all that i have is here. i am grateful for walking. my characteristics are my essence, and what lives in them if defined before my being cannot be managed explicitly in words; it is neither feeling, excessive description, motives, dynamic, space, nor is it time. it’s something other

and i do not agree all the way. i am not atheist because i follow existentialism. i create possibility; it matters regardless of whether it’s regardless or not. it is matter and mankind, and humanity is subject to universal nature. i am not born with anything more than my body and mind, my pulsing self is always in motion, cycling through the universe and it’s abundance of characteristics. ideas appear and moments flash and i understand when it is beside me that it’s time for me to do this, to be effective and to appear in the world. impulsivity is not an action, but a feeling. channel it, and i wonder if you can do anything. live in a world of full possibility, language, openness, fragrant, bountiful, abundant reality

i always write a card

april 10th, 2025

i read the tiny folded note in my locker left by [redacted] with small doodles and us driving in a car, heading for the beach. it says, “sorry i was so grouchy yesterday. i am still learning to take care of myself…” i grin and fold it away again. thank you. thank you for that. i tell my french teacher that she is the best one i’ve ever had; she tells me i’ve done well. my heart’s all warm. we leave for lawn bowling twenty minutes late and [redacted] unknots my hair after it’s caught in the spinning blades of a handheld electric fan. i want to have planned love, but it never works that way. it’s always ridiculous and stringy. she is a real woman, more woman than me somehow, though she will not have kids. nor will [redacted], who i pucker my lips at. look at my red. i won. forgive me, let’s be friends. nor will i, probably. she behaves so young. it’s so warm; i sweat and sweat until i’m empty but the sun keeps burning me. i sip solo, dripping wet with cold, and shove down a sausage sizzle into my throat. i sit on [redacted]’s lap and play with her hair. it’s hot; it absorbs the heat. it absorbs us. let me sit here forever. let me forget things. i forget nothing. i remember nothing. it’s a good day. when we come back i sit and gush about the things i love, such as writing. writing and my body, your mind, her soul grappling onto mine; shaky palms, too shaky, let’s go easily. it’s all good. i don’t complain. evening travels. i’m in the same place. i’m in the same place talking to you about writing, and how it feels to write about things. things you’ve remembered, forgotten, remembered again; rejoice. the difference between writing about romance and love. stringy, blocky, in-your-mouth romance—planned, dripping, anticipated. it’s not hot. love—twisting, sentient, unspeakable. yes. more and more forever

sensible longing

april 9th, 2025

went and saw the minecraft movie today with my childhood best friend. nothing was funny but i laughed anyway. absurd. we waited outside the theatre for half an hour, waiting for her mum to come and get us. i wished i had a cigarette and that i was at the table outside the pub; there was a woman with a short haircut, a brunette, and as she walked past she embraced everybody and the world embraced her. i do not have that effect. what effect do i have? do i stand outside the iga waiting for somebody to come and get me? is that all anybody thinks of me? i scored very well this term, but my friend scored higher. i am proud of both of us. she is paid for her grades. i don’t know what i am, but i am not paid. i am happy and i don’t relapse and i don’t wish i were people i’m not. i wish i were more myself, but that’s only sensible

to what extent am i older already?

april 8th, 2025

sushi tonight. little time to waste, but i do anyway! and that’s fine tonight. i’ve got things ahead of me, moments to enjoy. and i am not guilty or rotten for being here tonight, eating sushi and chatting with somebody i’ve known forever. forever like a silverfish, like a pattern in the water you can’t make out until it gets you, on the finger or the nose it suckles like a child, never should’ve dragged your finger through the stream, and it needs it’s mother. who are you to turn it down? will you look after it? do the right thing, do it right now. remember who you are or you’ll forget forever. there’s little time to waste before i’m older and i don’t remember what i meant about the silverfish, and my dreams are dying but i’m still alive; and so my mind eats and eats but it has nothing to grow. no water. dreams nourish. is it capitalism? we’ve always dreamed. dreamed of a river, a mountain to watch the sunset, fresher herbs, flowers in the garden to ward off evil, a happier face, fuller hair and more beautiful eyes. but i don’t know about that. i’ve got such little time to waste that all i think of is an evening with you, by candlelit dinner, swallowing each other’s momentous train of thought, raining outside, licking our lips, never-been-here-or-better. never been better. touching each other’s clothes. not undressing. holding each other’s heads. we do this so often now, it’s like a fried radio, a dried tomato in the sun. can you crack an egg on the road in the heat of australian summer? can you be content without wasting time? what did i mean about the fucking silverfish?

weather report

april 7th, 2025

very cold, average day today. no snow. no rain; it tried. wind in the nostrils that made me dry. stringy, dewy drops on the blades of grass that i picked, took apart like string beans. no crazy thoughts but contorted face in the hallway that said, politely, get back up on your pedestal. you’re not god, but you’re good to me. that’s enough now. tired beyond a normal range and there’s a buzzing in my stomach, eyes fluttering shut, lashes tucked in goodnight, but this is not like last year. i am a bottle of expense that i drink and drink, not a naked ballerina muse, ankles rubbing on the piano keys, play me good

nobody’s coming to get me

april 6th, 2025

in the waiting realm. thinking about how i have done no homework this weekend and that i can’t remember a time when i felt like this about anything. i feel fresh and muddy, my teeth are furry but my tongue is made of toothpaste. my lips are moisturized but my ass is shrouded with things that look like zits. things are changing; we’re moving on through our lives. i don’t have big red hives growing on my skin waiting to burst, i’m just growing. it will never be the same again. how dramatic. anybody would laugh. would you? maybe i am just simply not funny. is it more serious to say that what depresses me is that as the rate of new, exciting, never-done-before things in my life decreases, the time feels sped up. life goes scientifically quicker. and this weekend has felt slow. i’ve never had a longer weekend, because each day has been new. people have been exceedingly more dependable. i have been, too. i’ve felt generally happier, albeit more confused about my place on earth. i’ve listened to all of these open pathways sing, every one of them my entire life, and haven’t chosen one desperately as i always do because i have been reconciled with the knowledge that it will be there next weekend, too. my throat is hoarse. the game is almost up, but not at all finished. the hands of clocks are churning through butter, stirring the pot that i simmer in. i am happy enough. i am confused, but i am happy enough. does the foggy nothing ever disappear? or do you wade through thoughtless rumination hell forever?

a chronic cynic's cycle

april 5th, 2025

it’s done now. i thought maybe it would feel like a weight lifted off of my shoulders, but life goes on instead. another party tonight that i should go to. last night i had fun but i was not around the people i know. not really. maybe, actually. maybe i know them better than the people in my own year level. they’re easier, kinder people to some degree. i have to think about [redacted] and i’s date tomorrow, and what to do, since she won’t be coming to the party tonight. that’s okay. she doesn’t know anybody there and i understand. so much pressure to choose something for us to do. not really! but i wish she’d come over to my house without needing to come over to my house. i woke her up this morning to a phone call. i thought she’d be awake. i don’t know. tonight i have the opportunity to see people in my year level. and i don’t have to drink or do things i don’t want to do. i know that. but still. it’s another party. at the end of the day, it’s not so fulfilling. but i forget how much it does feel honest to my age when i am there. it feels semi-regular, the parties. but it’s also draining. i feel deficient of fun a lot of the time when i’m with those people, and i don’t seem to have that much energy right now. i’ll get around to asking myself questions eventually

i thought after i came home from [redacted]’s and had done all the things i’ve done now—shower, wash my face, clean clothes, quintessential posting of formal pics for no reason, unpack my things—i’d have a bit more to do. but no. i am sad because my writing didn’t make it through to a submission i really wanted. i am sad because i’m not writing much more than journal entries and quick unfortunate poems. i am sad because my back hurts even though i took time to stretch on [redacted]’s bedroom floor this morning. i am sad because my eyes are sore, and my stomach is full of acid that i don’t retch. i am sad because i feel unfulfilled a lot. i know that people realize it, too. i am looking forward to my dad coming home. he will not have time to talk to me about these sorts of things, though. and it’s no fun to be no fun when we are walking through western australian bush for six days in the holidays. but he’d have answers. if he could answer me. it’s a shame to have all the persons in the world that you need but not enough people around you. not one person do i have to call to ask, “is everything going to be okay with this?” and receive a real response. i am tired of people. i am tired of things. my body is a nice place to be, but i did not inhabit it last night. maybe when i was beginning to fall asleep in bed. or when i called [redacted]. or when i was making pancakes. i can think of times. but i am ashamed, actually, to feel disappointed with myself. i am a chronic cynic. i try not to be

philosophy is very useless

april 4th, 2025

i can be your soft landing. are you kidding me? i’m so good at it. not at taking care of people or things, but at being a place to rest. ground. lower. breathe. settle. unless you’re wicked. then i will not let you. but mostly people are kind, and so i allow them my space; to rest on me. my stomach is growling at me. i have four hours to get ready for the formal tonight. all that’s really left to do is change, do my hair, and do my makeup. so i have been reading and meditating on the floor. i’ve been looking up how to achieve rest, like google will give me a result other than take care of your physical health, meditate, journal, or that maybe an oracle will surmount and become more of my mind than my body. it won’t happen. i’m waiting stupidly. i’m writing. i’m trying to be creative. it’s working, but also all i can think to do is colour. i did that in france; brought my colouring book. it worked most of the time. but now i get angry. all the places that are quiet are the places people walk in on me and ask questions that make my head explode. i don’t have good answers. i don’t have rhyming words. i don’t even have much of a spirit. i’m waiting until i am not here to get it back

i was going to write a letter to someone today, or come up with a list of things i’d like doing when school ends. that really helps when i am feeling lonely. gratitude and connection always survives me. i keep forgetting i am allowed to drive. my dogs have been up and down on my bed all day, as i’ve left my door open. sometimes when thinks happen repeatedly in a chronological or fixed order i take it as a sign that i am going to die very soon, or if my vision is blurred and my head is foggy. i’d like to think that if i’m going to die from something i don’t know about, i’d be able to pick up on it. i am more afraid of being unknown than i thought. i think all philosophers are just people very concerned with uncertainty, and so they make wonderful books to read to convince us all that we have answers, rhyme, spirit, but they know better than us that we don’t. they have language we don’t, and that they will not express outside of their inner capacity to love. do you know what i’m saying? i’m straying from my point. the point is that the people who we believe most of all believe there is joy in uncertainty are actually the people most afraid of it, and that’s why they make their books, and why they all are very much saying the same thing without realizing it

living in me, a shard left

april 3rd, 2025

i’ve got to figure this out. things are going well for me; not tracking too askew. i’ve sorted the drama (mostly), and i’m seeing the people i love today. who know me well enough. i was just going to say that on the bus this morning to school the round yellow sun hit my face behind the pine trees, the shadows of the buildings were thick and long on the ground still, and i had to play a song: everything in its right place. everything is. was. i was there. i was waiting to see my future, thinking i had time. as always, i think i have time. i was tapping my foot and the little girl in front of me with her black hair was right by her mum’s side, nervous. antsy. when can we get off? we do this so much. can anything bad happen in my world? i’m beginning to think i am immune to global badness outside of my own creation, my jaws. i have escaped everything and been my own priveleged evil. that ability to harm myself because there’s room enough to recover, to discover only for the fun of it, not because i need the space. i can hoard it all in my very big house, my great yard, my wardrobe with nice dresses. i say it all like it’s nothing but i know there’s something here. living in me, a shard left

but isn’t it good i don’t bleed much? not much. i am sitting here worried about what people say. what they think of me. is my writing any good? i’m always thinking that. nobody is as serious as me, is what i like to think when i’m rejected, sentenced to unbelievability. my writing’s tough and uncooked, it’s not even raw, right? do people think it’s provocative? do people give the time of day to think things about my moon, my sorrow, my sin at the window ceil, looking in? the real stuff; not this. this stuff is not mine, it’s too exactly what i need to say. writing’s the performance of a lifetime. the cynic that raises it’s hand—clenched in it a wand to strike you—but the pages have no spell good enough. you make your own, don’t you? i certainly do. good enough? i can never be sure. there’s no end point. there’s no time-line. i haven’t even started. but is this a sign that i never should? that i feel all other contact with outside life is not necessary for me to create art? don’t i want to invite the challenge even when i know there is difficulty? why do i hope it is too much work for me? i want to be good at this

sleep on the left side

april 2nd, 2025

oh i am a lucky girl at that. i mean it. even when im hated. which is today, apparently. note to self: do not let the hate out in public. they like you, but they do not like you that much. i have a girlfriend who likes me so much, and wants to know that i’m okay, and buys my favourite food when she’s not sure. she likes me. i have a best friend who listens and likes the things i have to say. she likes me. i have friends to see. i have people to prove myself to. i have adults who make a positive contribution to my life. i have a support network to lean on, which includes myself. i am not full of self-hatred, even when they believe me to be interested in cruelty. i guess that’s true. i’m interested, but i don’t play that game. i didn’t even think twice when the words slipped out, but this morning i blinked out a few tears when i remembered i am able to hurt others with my words, beyond this archive. i exist. it’s a thrill. but i do not mean to make people uncomfortable with the truth. just inquisitive. anyway. i am reconciled. i know how lucky i am to not be anybody else. that’s not always a given in life, or just moment-to-moment. like, walking on the sidewalk, feeling like everybody else. thinking, anybody else could do this. but i am luckier than most, because i have less moments like that. in saying that, i have just looked to my right side and there is a woman writing away in her notes app! god, life is cruel and hilarious sometimes

pledge to my self-seriousness

april 1st, 2025

formal is in three days, and i don’t know anything about that. i am relying on other people to tell me where i am supposed to go. normally, i don’t do that, but seeing as it’s not my formal and i am coming as a plus one, i expect somebody at some point is going to give me some idea of where and when to show up, and for what

also having a crisis of consumption over creation. what if i am not reading enough? what if i don’t know enough philosophy? what if my friends don’t like spending time with me? what if i am only good at regurgitating other people’s words? but this is helpful. writing on this weird little corner of the internet i have given birth to is helpful because it has the illusion of going someplace. like i might believe someone important will see this and think i was clever, or that at the very least i was better than other people at saying lots of things. is that what all writers want? i’m connection-hungry, obviously. i’d never shred myself down into bite-size pieces unless i believed somebody might be out there willing to eat me. i’m not a psychopath; i’m planning this out. (i think). i hope i’m clever enough to do that, actually. i still have a lot to learn about how to be a creative. but then again i know that everything i am i have inside me already. where is my soft soil and mild sun? where is the patch of the garden? i have to go out looking for it, like god i’m out here looking for you. but i am a girl still first. one day i am going to be something better than that

practicing wu wei

march 31st, 2025

i saw a bird this morning on the dog walk who was sitting on the power line. his feather flew off him and he just looked at it while it drifted away from him over the fence. i looked back and he had flown away. i am curious to know if he ever admired that feather on himself and felt proud of it at any point, and if he was a bit sad at all that it left. do birds get sad? doesn’t every animal have emotions? i’d think so

today was a really all right day. i listened to taoist philosophy in the morning and was determined to make the most of it all. i still have yoga in an hour, so the day is not over yet. but even though i was salty through some of the day, particularly during recess through to lunch, including when i snapped at [redacted] and pulled the ruler he was slapping against the table right from his hand, i am excited for things to happen. they’ll end after all, and there are people feeling the same way as me. i am determined to let go in a way i have not been prepared for in some time. and i feel supported without anguish or fear of losing the people i love. the uncertainty gets to me, but i have to learn to let it. there will never be a time im okay with it, so i might as well begin to live with it. i am not perfect yet, but i will strive to be compassionate. i deserve to be happy

i don’t know how to answer your questions

march 30th, 2025

i shouldn’t be so cold to my mum. this is the loop to my life. sometimes i think i’m evil. when i am angry, i am angry at others. but am i the angriest of them all? how do they deal with me? at the family party, i don’t even know how to answer them. all their questions about who i’m going to be. one way or another, it all leads back to the same boring answer that nobody really cares about, “i don’t know.” it doesn’t matter to me. why does it matter to them? and life is going to be like this forever. soon they will ask me about relationships. loving other people. getting married. having children. raising children. being happy. i don’t know a thing. don’t ask me! and i’m happy about most of it, but then i come home and i’ve taken a bath now, when i take a bath it’s not as serious; i let myself shut off. isn’t it not a bad thing to waste time in the bath? can i lose that hour of my life and have it not be serious? can you ever forgive me?

pleased but whatever

march 29th, 2025

it’s a good day to be pleased with myself. i have my learner’s permit as of today. i am on the roads. my driver’s license photo is good i feel. i look focused. my lips are bright red. and we hiked this morning, like last weekend. it was beautiful, and it made me want my learner’s permit so that i can drive myself up into the hills and hike when i want to. i will do things like that next year. i swear. i swear you’ll be there to see me do that. life’s just flying by. next week could not end faster even though it hasn’t begun. i hate formal. i hate dresses. i hate talking about other people. i hate looking like i’m going out. i hate the fuss. i hate the excitement. i hate that this doesn’t belong to me. next year it will be different. how do i make it different? oh, i don’t care. i’m in a good mood, though

i have a party tonight, and a massage that i just came home from. i don’t know what i’m wearing, but i think a skirt will suffice. no. jeans. not sure. oh, i don’t care

not concise enough

march 28th, 2025

i got a 7 on my english paper, and just had a really nice chat with my teacher about it. he said, “sometimes i forget that you’re you in my class.” i’m not all the way sure what he means. maybe he’s talking about two days ago, when i sat up the back and wrote a long bit of prose in a red pen, and turned it over when he came to speak with me. he says i am not so concise, and that i have to improve on that. i agree. have you seen this archive? oh, god, i have got to be more concise. ha, i hope not. but he also says he is really happy he gets to teach me. that makes me feel proud of myself. i do good work. i help people. i am worth a room, for a time, and a place, to talk about writing. nothing else, maybe. maybe my neurodivergency is stronger than i thought. i can’t seem to make sense of the words leaving people’s mouths fast enough; i used to be so good at it. so concise about other people being concise. i really ought to learn about making an effort again; staging my understanding of conversational love. how to be concise? but no, i’m busy. i’m in the older wing looking at you and not saying anything important because i haven’t eaten lunch and i’m dry of words, because i don’t know what you want me to say anymore. we’ve said everything. you’ll come over later tonight. it’s all awkward. i feel like i’ve got hives all over

i’m waiting for [redacted] to call me again and i might pick up. i will. it will make me feel good. it never happens. i wonder if she’s forgetting about me, like i sort of am her. i’m not really forgetting. we’re connected by some thread of reality; we have unfinished business, her and i. i’m waiting until she gets on the right meds and doesn’t feel suicidal, and yet i don’t speak to her. the time difference makes it too hard. i don’t respond to her messages. i’m rotten. i’m a bad friend. but my english paper was worth a 7. this academic validation thing is easy. my history test went superbly this morning. i will be surprised if i don’t get higher than a 20/25. but maths was a flop. i should’ve banged my head against the table until the world started turning again. i’ve been so sad all day, sort of. i was happy for a bit there. it doesn’t really matter. nobody’s spoken to me properly, just [redacted] a couple minutes ago. it feels like i’m talking to screens. i feel like i’m a screen. i should be outside having fun, but i’m deciding whether or not to stay to do d&d club and touch my girlfriend’s arm and then take [redacted] home with me to play roblox, if he even does, but he won’t, because he has tutoring. so, i’m not getting shit out of this. everything’s pretty much evil. not sure. will go to d&d club to see him and if not, i will leave

here i think i am

march 27th, 2025

here i am. here at least i think i am. and it’s all dumb stuff that i want to write about. i want to talk about holding a dark red rock in my hands when we went hiking in early december and it was miserable, that rock crumbled like dust in my hands and it was so cold that summer and we hated each other in that big tent, playing games, it was dark red rock that crumbled but it should’ve been the sky or the ocean or us if we had all had the courage to swallow each other, but none of us did because we’re pretty much all still children. i wouldn’t mind the chance to write about my deception, and about how good i am at doing things i think are really despicable and never apologizing later, and cursing people for doing the very same thing, never getting caught. but then again, i don’t want to write about that. i’m not ill, and i’m not crazy. i just make mistakes sometimes. that’s a really awful way to speak about ourselves. i could talk about my therapist; the first one. i can’t remember anything she ever said to me, but i remember always wishing i was much younger than i was so that i could play with the things she had stocked up in the corner of her office. i probably could have. i was eleven then. i want to cry and tell you i’m sorry for not reading. i don’t want people looking at me like it’s nothing to cry over. it really is. here i am, i have bought all these books to read, and yet i am busy. it’s a thing worth crying over. imagine if you had spent so many nights up late on the phone to one friend who is really distant to you but you still love a lot, and then all of a sudden she doesn’t ever occur to you to be of any interest, and so now you have all of these fond memories that don’t really exist because at the same time; she was not really in your life, but now on your shelf. it’s frustrating. i should be reading right now

here i think i am making a point about something so vivid and strong in my life, but all you’re reading is words. and through some version of hell i imagine they mean so little to you. that makes me nervous

school home school

march 26th, 2025

met the minister for autism at school this morning, and went to the staff meeting to learn about inclusive education and the like. it was important. i brought [redacted] and i get the sense she was fine being there. sometimes when we say goodbye to each other at the end of a slot in the week where we have scheduled in important friendship quality time i get the sense that i won’t talk to her about anything in a really long time. we said goodbye when i went to art, and she said we should talk about this. i said, “yes,” then walked away. i love her so much. it’s funny that it weighs as much as myself

i was really a bit sluggish. i went to alliance française after school. my mind had already long-melted. i took my short-acting medication sneakily in the corner of the room and then wrote my subjunctive text. i hate to not know how useful any of the things i’m learning are. i trust that one day i will meet this knowledge face-to-face and think, yeah, yeah, i get it now but until then i’m slowly sinking into a pit called school and home and school again. it’s so fun here, i’m unnerved. and to make matters more interesting, i’m believing in my uncertainty. i might as well beg to differ from the rest of myself about all the things i used to think were the end of the world. it’s easy to look back and feel like that, but i always catch myself in the present moment breathing out so long, so hard, so rough. nobody else catches me. i’m like a cold

crux of knowledge; nothing

march 25th, 2025

had the day off school today because of parent teacher interviews. i only had one. got my flu shot. bought a candle which is now right behind my head. it says citrus on it. i wish i had something to tell you. it’s been so long since i had something good to say that wasn’t a recurring nightmare about my life and the way i’m probably choosing to live it. which is apparently in bed, thinking about how i should live my life. i’m kidding. i’m more out and about that anybody i know now. i’m kidding; i’m rotten. totally. don’t come to my house, don’t see me, don’t sleep on it, don’t wake up to it, just come over already. see? it’s hard. i’m yet to know someone who cares about the things i say in a way that doesn’t consist of hard-earned empathy. am i sad? no. i connect, and try to. and connection is the key to happiness. isn’t it? so why does earth and art not stop me? i’m in fucking rotation at the crux of knowledge but i’m learning there’s nothing really there; nobody has contributed, and i certainly haven’t. science is outdated, but we keep learning until each fact is ruled as pseudoscientific. we have to take it out. just like me and you. we keep going even though there’s no clear answer why, because humans are so amazing, aren’t we, we just keep on being in love and doing things that put us at the very heart of alternate terrors that look like reality but have not the faintest clue about pain, and we live there. it’s good. it’s neat. i really wish i had something to say

nothing today

march 24th, 2025

french film festival today. we saw le comte de monte-cristo. it’s a three-hour-long film. i sat next to [redacted]. we didn’t touch much. i thought about it, but she was laughing too much. i just wanted to have a good time, too. that’s not a bad thing? i wanted to go home afterward, but my french teacher told me to stay for the class after lunch, so i went. we started the subjunctive, which is nice. i like it. the french don’t use it very much in spoken language, though, it’s always nice to write. we have a test next week. i can’t remember anything that happened today. but i didn’t see many people i wanted to see, and i didn’t feel totally alive and well. i just felt good at being upset and a bit aroused. i came home early. i did some homework but mum came into the kitchen and i wanted the quiet, so i stopped

writing from the bus

march 23rd, 2025

we hiked this morning. and then i met [redacted] for lunch with my parents. i ate a margherita pizza and had a tall glass of orange juice. when i was meant to go home with my parents, i decided to go back to [redacted]’s house instead and swim in her pool. we had a lot of fun. this weekend has been nice; i’ve seen all of my important people. it would be nice if tonight, i had some alone time. i’m on the bus now, coming home, still in my hiking gear. my freckles have come out, because [redacted] and i made a platter and ate it on her deck in the sun. she is so kind and happy sometimes. im good for her. we’re good when we’re part of each other’s days. i wish it was magical all the time. school hates us both with a burning passion, but it’s good to be best friends. i wonder if i will ever decide to get on a bus one day without knowing where im going. i wonder if im predictable like i think so many others are, and how it makes them boring. i don’t find people boring, only sometimes when im in a bad place. but i don’t want to be there anymore

when im convinced that ill be all right, ill get back to you. i’m a little nervous that im not a good friend, or that i don’t take myself well, and maybe i should begin to lighten up. when i do that, i feel better, and my dreams suffer. but my dream is to be in love, and that doesn’t matter when it comes to my own happiness. love matters when you find it hard, because there’s real pride and excellence in the excitement of not knowing how it will treat you. i wish i was bursting with love right now. i remember all of the times where i couldn’t sit still because i was so busy fussing over my life, because it was so filled with a real sense of admiration for love. it’s so simple to say out loud, but it is difficult to express how much it takes from your pain to give you pleasure

wishbone graveyard

march 22nd, 2025

i’m not down-trodden today, even though i might seem it. i might talk it. but it’s not the reality. today i woke up and chose a faction of excellence. i’m choosing to prove it. i’m choosing to give my pride away to direction, and today it’s all right. today i wrote and applied for a writer’s residency near me. i won’t get it; i’m hopeful. i did it all after writers club, and stayed in the library, where i churned out an assignment for french and got to work on my ess revision in just two hours. then i met [redacted] at coles for our ritualistic hang out after two months separated. i realize that if i don’t achieve the scotland dream, i may be going to university with her in sydney. we bought pringles, a big bottle of pomegranate kombucha, sour lolly worms, raspberries, and raspberry white chocolate muffins. it was all delicious. that was lunch. we sat in the botanic gardens like always and talked about ourselves. we’re both feeling stagnant, and want change now. we’re both impatient. i find she’s easy to listen to. we’re aligned cosmically. that was all, and it meant a lot. i walked her to the bus stop fifteen minutes ago, and now i have set up camp in the small dining area at the very front of the cinema, just to the right of the door. i am waiting for [redacted] to join me for bridget jones’ diary, since we couldn’t go to the beach. we don’t have the tickets yet, but i know she will still want to pay once she gets here. don’t tell her, but i’m really feeling too tired to help her. i should be the superhero and buy the tickets now, but i don’t have the cash, and i am too tired. i hope she will do it all for me. she is sick; i should look after her. but honestly, i can’t. i feel too sleepy. when the movie ends tonight, my brother will collect us, and drive her home. then i will come to my bedroom, charge my headphones, shower, light incense and play music through my speaker, journal four pages, meditate on a candle light, and i will not be angry about the day. i will just gently go to sleep, grateful for myself and my efforts. it’s okay to follow my own needs around and it’s okay to break a wishbone here and there. it all ends up in the same place anyway. i might talk it

bethany, are you leaving me?

march 21st, 2025

i actually don’t believe in fate. today [redacted] asked me if i’d relive this day forever, and i don’t know why but it made me feel awful. i started feeling tired. i am waiting for him now. we are going back to my house after this. and i guess i’m not miserable or anything. i’m just tired. i can always think of things to make myself feel bad, and i know i shouldn’t do that. anyway, i do. i feel good but i am not calm. there is always something. like i can think of my dad at work, or [redacted] being unfulfilled, or my inevitable panic when im finally told to leave

but im just playing games with you now. there’s a lot to be happy about. me and [redacted] are going on another date tomorrow night, and im not going to a party because i don’t fit in there and that’s really okay. im working towards being better. and writing more without hurting myself for it. and i’m doing better. really, with things. i’m not angry at people when they want to know about my day. i don’t feel like the world is going to end if i decide not to have children. i’m getting better. at letting go, sort of. at doing things in the morning. at not feeling guilty. but i’m not feeling less ashamed. or less lonely. i am just reeling in all this noise, and soon it will be over. not long now. but i don’t want to feel like this every time; like waiting it out is the only solution to my problems. i will only end up wasting my life

recall

march 20th, 2025

i’ve been so good today. not a single prayer in my mind. held it all in like a champion. and i was alone today. lacking motivation to be stronger than i was today; i know i can be. i’m recording a lot, but am over it now. i miss when passion couldn’t keep itself from me. i used to sing really loud to keep myself awake, and mumble in the sheets when i’d fall asleep; i wanted the house to know

abandonment issues

march 19th, 2025

is this burnout? every couple of months i feel it. it’s really an aimless frenzy. should i be happy or sad? is my hard work reflected because i’m being lifted up so high and this is just a gentle crash i should embrace? it should feel that way, but it really just feels evil. i don’t know if i’m doing well and this is a sign of my scholarly aptitude or if this is a sign of my consistently depleting faith in life itself. that makes me laugh but my chest is just heaving so it’s all off; i could cry if i wanted to. i’m just waffling. it’s not worth the risk

i’m sitting watching you across the table. it’s a little weird. i don’t want to be part of this, and i’m not sure if you’re lying to me about how much you enjoy me being here. it’s weird about that. i never feel that around people who i’ve just met, which seems like the obvious thing. i never feel nervous, though. only around people i’m deeply involved with. because there’s more to lose, i guess. there’s more of me i’ve shared that could be hanging up in the air for you to steal, part with, judge, dehumanize. it’s normal. i’m trying not to think about it. is this burnout or is my self-worth deteriorating? no. probably not. i didn’t meditate this morning and i’m feeling inferior to god. i want it all to change. i need today off, but here i am anyway. no breaks. i want to cry. i want to be on holiday in asia. i want to be in love with [redacted]. i want to feel enjoyed. i want energy to laugh. i want energy to say no. i don’t want to feel abandoned

conquering my school

march 18th, 2025

got an award today. life’s looking up but down at me. i was so active in the school. it felt like a performance. i am loving leadership, and hating it very much. i love to help, and make change, and report. oh man, i love to report and surprise people with language. but i don’t like the fuss. i had to change shoes to go on stage for five minutes because they did not like me wearing my docs. but that was okay. it was nice to see [redacted] give her speech on stage; leadership suits her very well. i have to tell her that. she has a glow. my award was for advocating for students with diverse learning capabilities. the recognition for that is a bit late, but i am just pleased it has arrived at all. and at lunch i helped out with the philosophy club stall, and got us some new members. i talked to [redacted] about my extended essay, and whether or not he would in fact still be able to supervise me for that. he said, “absolutely.” i’m really pleased. everything else has been fine

i’m not so sure what to do after school, but i know i have to come up with something. sometimes, i don’t have any homework. i simply come home, get unready, have dinner, and then have nothing to do. i only ever do stupid things with my time. in the mornings, i am like a machine. i get everything done and even more, the things i’d love to do on top of that; journaling, stretching, meditation. but in the evenings, i crash. my dream? eat dinner, take off my makeup, finish homework, make tea, journal, light candles, read, fall asleep early. but for whatever reason, i neglect my hopes and go straight to short-acting dopamine. i will turn this around soon, when i am not knee-deep in fighting off real disillusion with life

inversion in the mirror

march 17th, 2025

i’m filming again, like i did in france. it’s a nice feeling. yesterday i decided that i’d do that this week, because i’m feeling pointless. how i get sometimes. not really this time. confused! i won’t explain it anymore. i’m just filming like i did in france, and it’s a pleasant thing. i wore my rugby jumper to school for the first time all year. it was nice. i felt so clean. i’m busy rushing around trying to see the best in people, and it’s only just occurred to me that i haven’t seen another person’s reflection in a mirror for a long time. isn’t that humbling? standing beside someone, looking into imaginary images, seeing each other but not seeing ourselves because we already know what we look like, but not to one another. i always end up writing about mirrors. i used to watch mirror, mirror all the time. i loved that bollywood ending. i used to stand up and dance to it. if i told people that, i’d have no idea how they might react to me. anyway. a few hours ago i cried, because i received an email that my teacher would like to have an interview with me. the automated email the school sends out says that i am not achieving my personal best in his class, and that is why he wants to see me. when i told him, he said that he knew nothing about that; he only wants to check in with me. it made me feel very sick, to think i was doing bad in a subject. sometimes i don’t think i am very perfectionist. things like this put me right back into my place

this isn’t what i wanted to say

march 16th, 2025

i’m so hopeless at the game. i don’t know what to say. i’m just quiet. before this i wasted everything. and the worst thing is that i am going to finish writing and continue to. have you ever wasted so much of your time on earth that you forgot what it was like to wade through water with two hands at your sides, thinking of push and pull, and the gravitational relationship between you and the earth. thank god, i will never leave this place. this is all i’ve ever wanted, anyway. i don’t need more than this, except for myself. can i have a second form available for when this one disappoints me so? i cannot wait to climb into bed and feel like a loser; tomorrow school starts, and life starts again. i have another week to work through. a license to get which makes my uterus squeal, and another one after that. another week. i don’t know. it’s hideous sometimes. sometimes that’s all life really is. hideous. and even though everybody else does such a good job carrying on, you just can’t help but wallow in the pain of it. even though dad comes home and says the same nice things. and i cannot manage the simple task of saying hello to anybody because i am so miserable. you blame it on them because you’re not sure about things. i’m afraid and alone, and dinner is going to be in an hour or two. i don’t know what to say to anyone

give me a decent explanation

march 15th, 2025

i’m angry at people for asking me how it was. it was fine. i’m like a child that doesn’t know their mother’s first name. what was it again? for asking me if it was worth it and if it was valuable if i learnt anything if i’m excited, no, i’m not. i’m ready to go to sleep. i’m feeling sick of this shit. i still have more to come; i want to sleep in bed. i’m not depressed. i wish that i was. i feel evil. everyone’s mad at me and i’ve gone to the floor to lie down. just yesterday i was laughing so hard and i thought i’d throw up in the pool. that was less than twenty-four hours ago. i don’t give a damn, this is how i feel now; but facts aren’t feelings. those people who listen to that are so damn lucky. what neurotypical advice! don’t look at the person or it will be awkward; i can’t believe i have to do this later on. i just have to write now. with an unmatched urgency. i want a doctor’s appointment. i want another therapist. i want a good luck charm around my own neck. i want an explanation from you. i want an explanation

there’s nothing radical in what i did today. i wasted a lot of time. they were all really impressed with me, and i felt proud. i felt smart, too. i wish today i had been sick. i met a girl who is in her first year at med school, and she is really wonderful. she hated school. i don’t know if i still do. i hate the building. my community isn’t so bad. nobody’s angry with me there, except for [redacted] and sometimes the old cleaner who doesn’t like me eating sandwiches in the study room

impressionist

march 14th, 2025

this afternoon was nice, and then not so nice, and nice again. i’m really happy to have laughed a lot and to be tired from it. there’s so much i can lose

days are flying by; i’m grateful

march 13th, 2025

what can i tell you about me? i hope you don’t think i’m afraid of being told i’m uninteresting. i have millions of second opinions on that very subject, for i am so brave about it; you couldn’t scare me off about it anymore. today i have been so tired, but received an amazing result for my ess test yesterday morning—maybe yoga really is the thing that will save me from myself. i got the equivalent of a 6 in the IB for my foundations test. that’s pretty great. what else has happened? i saw [redacted] with [redacted] today and had war flashbacks, but realized it will not weigh on me as much as it will her; i am not afraid of powerful sensation or touch. are they not the same thing? [redacted] is going well; we are looking for each other. it’s nice. she’s loud—not in a tacky way—and vivacious; people find her funny. i’m intense and passionate, and i can always find something to say. we work well in some sort of way which isn’t different from many people i know. we work well together, and i am going to the beach with her i think on saturday after the adjudicating training. i am missing writing club. i still don’t know what to wear to that. what do you wear to a room full of people who are training to be sensible critics of children? maybe a skirt and a singlet, or a blouse of some kind. it’s so hot on that day

in any case. it’s good. [redacted] and i had a nice conversation on the second oval before she got her bus about the leadership strategies at school and how we should work together. i’m feeling grateful for her as i am reminded by numerous friendships around me that it’s not always this easy for people as it is for us. i wish i didn’t make it so hard in my head; it’s not. tomorrow after school i am coming to d&d club for [redacted], because [redacted] is also there. but after that we are heading into the city to get bubble tea. i want it to be sunday already

the right person

march 12th, 2025

[redacted] and i are texting a lot and walked each other to our lockers. i want to kiss her. it’s not dangerous outside of school, it’s really nice. but then when we are together i feel she doesn’t know what they are like, or that they can be like. not because she’s too good, but because she’s too natural. she likes people. yeah, that’s it. she likes people. i like some people. she is very trusting that all will be well if we just stay this way, and we do the things to get ourselves further up the line of love; a food chain. date. hug. texting. innocuous time together. second date. kiss. ambivalent interaction. third date at one of our houses. kiss again. and i can’t lie, i trust this outline too. because i trust that we are people who want the same things, and are going to get them. i am interested to know how right i am in a few weeks time

i am officially going to formal with [redacted] next month. we are doing pres at [redacted]’s with her boyfriend, some friends, and their plus ones or partners. i am not treating it seriously because it is not my formal. i am going because i want to drink and have a good time with [redacted] at a school event, which we never can. on that note, i’m feeling super about managing my time, but all of my activities are making me depressed, and i am praying that with winter, i will find ways of dealing with things differently that compensate for my unresolved anxiety about being stuck in one place forever, doing all of the same things. on that note, i’m doing debating sa adjudicating training on saturday, from 10am until 4pm. that’s my entire sunny saturday gone! unless [redacted] and i end up going to the beach for sunset after, which might be magical. we will kiss then. the things you do for love

in the word’s of nirvana, rape me

march 11th, 2025

yes i am getting my shit together as if i don’t go back and forth over every event in my mind trying to make it a little better, busier, more anticipated. that’s the exciting way of doing things. but to be honest, i want it now. i bet you’re tired of hearing about me tell you how much i deserve it, because i do it every day and because i do more, and more, and more, and want it so bad, so i deserve it. no, i guess not. i’m never insinuating that, but i am desperate to deserve it. i’ll go to certain lengths. like lying. lying’s big. making sure nobody finds out. i’d never lie on an application form. i’d never lie about how much i think about you. i’d never lie about what my strengths and weaknesses are. but i’d lie about things in the moment that nobody ever remembers. it’s a cool, nice feeling. it would never go wrong. except now, that i’m pretty much awake, and wanting things, and making them happen. i’m not just vulnerable, i’m out in the open with my arms open wide waiting to be crucified. things are going to go wrong at any moment, and they already are. i already feel the build-up. i’m not ready but i’m sort of counting on my dissection. for somebody to exploit me in small ways. i’m disappointed when i get home and realize i am the only body dissecting the groundwork of my own creation. i know this because i am bored by so many others except for the ones which are half my soul, because they’re on the other side of me. anything could happen

joining forces

march 10th, 2025

i’m apparently not a person who can wait for anything. you’d think i would have known this about myself as i have mentioned it on numerous occasions, but for some reason it’s only just settled in that this is how i am. i can’t gaslight myself into not being brave and staying unscathed from the rest of humanity anymore. i am not a waitress, and i’m probably going to end up saying the thing i want to say

i’m minutes away from leaving home to catch the bus for the city. [redacted] and i are going on our very first date. i accidentally said something that sparked the conversation yesterday and after we spoke, i’ve been excited. i’m not sure how this happened. i have lots of questions and want to get to know her. we are going to order coffee and wander around the bookstore, and i’ve packed a speaker and blanket in case we have time to sit at the botanic gardens. i am tired of letting my brain overwork itself with wonderings. i’d just like to know she actually is and what it’s going to be like to date her, if we end up doing that. i hope we end up doing that. i hope i like her tomorrow. i want to know about her family and what she’s interested in. how mundane! it’s sort of refreshing, but i’m wondering how much i should treat it like a date. it’s better this way. it offers clarity. to go straight into it. it’s nice to know it wasn’t completely unexpected that i was forthright. i felt strange doing that, but natural. it hasn’t set in yet just what i’m planning. is it naïve to think she’ll be my girlfriend by the end of the month?

i still have to go through menopause

march 9th, 2025

trying to work through some things so let me give it to you cleanly. it may very well be as it is; me and nobody else. and if that’s the case, i’m going to endure anything else. i have the love of my life right at my fingertips whenever i require awe, and i have the best friend in the world. i also have people in my life that give to me when i need it, and who i give to when they need it. it’s this simple transactional reassurance which allows me to move forward. my family is great. i wish i would undo myself more often and forget about other requirements; i wish i’d built this family more so it would feel more like it could be mine. rory has helped somewhat

in terms of it going the other way, saying i do move forward (successfully) in and out of this current hell, assuming i actually get to the other side which is rainbows—or any weather at all for that matter—and sunshine, i won’t be alone like this. it’s difficult to know anything about this. there are so many questions, and there are thousands of answers. i want this because i can have this. i can have this because i want this. can i? do i want it at all? i’m not going to be angry with myself and others anymore. i’m not envious and i’m not shying away from things. i just can’t do that to myself anymore; i don’t have the guts. i am at odds with feeling nauseous, though. as always, i wish it would go away. but i know it’s been worse. and if i do want it, how do i go about doing it? assuming i do, because i am more sore of that than that i’m not, then i only see myself either progressively and whimsically going after her in numerous ways, or spontaneously asking her and deliberating in the moment. of course, i prefer the latter. but! i am painful! and cannot decide for my life

in all cases, i am doing better today. i wrote all morning for my poetry class and it was inspiring, even though i can barely keep my eyes open now. i am just so confused about the way things have been going and how i’ve been imagining things. i don’t know how real my thoughts are. i don’t trust them, and i need to be able to trust myself. not all feelings are facts, but what does that information even mean right now? not going to spiral out again. can’t. i hope this works out. i deserve this one, don’t i?

crashing out hard

march 8th, 2025

maybe i am just losing my mind. maybe that’s the only analysis to come out of today. today i called [redacted] on the phone and cried whilst pacing around in the aldinga garden because i am very afraid that i am desperately in love with a girl i’m not actually sure about, who is in love more so with another girl. not that i’m not sure about her. i’m in love with her; she’s artsy, beautiful, excitable, real. i’d like to be with her. that’s the worst part of all this. i really do think i like her. i am afraid i think i’m clever enough to get out of this and make her love me, instead of somebody else who she’s after. she’s after someone else. am i bad? am i awfully wrong? why pursue someone who is actively pursuing someone else? why is there nobody pursuing me? is there? god! i’m afraid i’m making a fool out of myself and of her. i’m afraid i’ll be alone forever. i’m afraid i’ll only ever do things for other people at this rate. pj harvey, don’t lie to me. i’m just a wreck of an audience member. i’m afraid this is just completely and unbelievably wrong and that it’s a result of evil jealous unregulated suffering from another’s silence. maybe this is not really complex at all. do you have thoughts like that? we all do. maybe i’m just drunk and have been told “no” one too many times in the last day, week, month, year. i don’t know. i don’t know. i just feel extraordinarily alone. things are changing. the wind will get over me, and i’ll die at twenty-seven. i’m making quite bad decisions! and yet i am saying the right thing more than ever. this is an unusual feeling. i am telling everyone exactly what needs to be said, and it’s experienced excellently because i’m efficient, clear, on-time. ridiculous. god! i don’t understand it. how could anybody else? i just want someone to tell me this is possible. i don’t want to be seen as desperate; i just needed clarity, balance, to be far away, to see i’m capable of being loved. all these things. i don’t want to die. i don’t want to be forgotten. you know? that won’t happen. i won’t do that. i’m good enough for more than a night, an evening, a rinse out. fuck. it’s awful. this has happened to people. but they’ve survived it and i haven’t, so how do i know i will?

analysis

march 7th, 2025

looking at my face in the black screen as i type, my knuckles moving over keys, fingers and red nails just painted popping up over them. my hair is curly on one side and flat on the other. i look tired. i scratch the back of my head; it hurts as i lift up the hair there. i am not trying to look like anything other than what i look like. my chin is strong and pokes out from my flesh. my lips are thin and wobbly and i lick them with my thin tongue. i lick them again. i am glad my eye sockets are not too big. my brows are thick and invisible. my chest is heaving softly. led zeppelin on my shirt rises, letters curl in hiding as i breathe in, un-crinkling on the out. my nose is narrow, my nostrils are right, my forehead is short and ends so precisely at the crown, where folds of hair shape the rest of my outline. i am in hiding

i came to write about something and i’ve forgotten it all now. i’m drinking water and thinking about later. i have to take a shower and get ready to leave for womad; world of music, arts, and dance in adelaide. it’s a big four day festival here. most years there aren’t many well-known artists. i saw florence and the machine one year. this year is pj harvey. i’m going with [redacted], and will meet her for a drink beforehand. i’m excited; i want to be energetic. i have to eat a salad before i leave. mum made it a couple nights ago and it’s my job to finish the rest. i don’t feel very relaxed, even though i just finished my fascia yoga class a couple hours ago. i just feel a bit unwell and stressed. nothing to do about that. i’ve burnt candles and incense, moved my body, gone outside to eat, had water. world, what more can i do??!

a day in the sun

march 6th, 2025

sometimes when i think of how angry i am, i think i could cry an entire ocean, except nothing ever comes. nothing is visceral enough for me. i just want to be able to feel it already, and for it to make me full of passion like thirst. no emotion is good enough. i am so unsatisfied with the way i process things. when i notice i am happy, i become unhappy. why is it so implausible? why must i fixate on it anyway? when i notice i’m unhappy, i become unhappier. why must it be this way? why is it such a dramatic thing?

the core of life

march 5th, 2025

it’s still morning. i feel inspired, but can’t write anything else. i am a bit frightened of things not happening to me. i am afraid of the things that do happen to me being worthless, no-good-at-all, really dreadful and wasted things. i cannot give you an example, because it’s all in my head. it’s all made up. i’m upset. about what? not using the pool. not enjoying walking my dogs. lying about enjoying walking my dogs. waking up early and falling asleep again. feeling unmotivated. feeling motivated. childhood having ended. life having started. life waiting to start. (is this life? i hope not). god being a foot-note in my life. caring about god. only being able to focus for guided meditations. wasting energy in school. not being a good friend. being a good friend and then realizing it means nothing. watching the banshees of inisherin and realizing i do care about writing more than i care about being nice; can i please be both. angry about getting old, being young, wanting to do other things, upset about the weight and the unbalance in my incapability to do anything besides moan about the beauty i’m too tired to expose myself to. i upset of being proven exactly as i am

i am a pretentious asshole maybe. i don’t want to get a big head. i want a fantastic education and i want to be smart. i want to write better and better. i want to write each morning and each night and i want to die with my head on a desk. i care a lot. i can’t tell you why. because it’s embarrassing? i do not reflect who i am when i am at school. i am surprised when people tell me who i am, mostly in a good way but i am still surprised. today is nothing. today is green and beautiful. today is long and it will end. today is going to be kind to me. today is my last day of school for the week. today i wish i believed in nothing. today i am so grateful to have something to thank for all the life i’ve got. today i’m split down the middle! as is every day! but i am especially gigantic today. no matter what, i can’t get to the center of life. i want to one day, and when i break into the core i want to find it’s unbelievably soft and when i put my cheek to it, it smells like buttermilk and the hibiscus tree at your cousins’ place

how much of it is because of you?

march 4th, 2025

there’s no order to this. i think i was confused at the bus stop when you were saying, “how much is love selfish? i think about how much of how i love you is because of you, or because of me.” i said, “either way, i don’t mind. it’s you who will love me regardless.” i think it was a bit pathetic upon reflection. it’s true. i don’t mind. i just want to be there with you. it’s slow and quiet today, and i miss you. i miss last week

my history test went horribly. i didn’t have time to answer the essay question at the end, and i knew i’d misunderstood the entire thing by the third question. there was no time to go back. my pencil was wobbly and i didn’t write much. but yoga tonight was helpful. by then, i wasn’t thinking about all the weird shit in my day. i was just thinking, i can’t wait to drink the tea in the waiting room and go home to bed. i haven’t done any homework, nor do i plan to. i feel guilty because i have no discipline. it isn’t true. i have written almost every day for 400 days. does it count? i love it regardless

debrief

march 3rd, 2025

waiting in the chiropractor's office with mum. i cannot wait for her to crack my back and fix my shoulders. my ribs and core hurt from yoga yesterday, and i am booked in for the same balance flow tomorrow night with a different woman, after i’ve finished ess. to keep this train of information about my social-personal life going, i have this friday off, and am going on the thursday writers week excursion, which means that i only really have two days left of school this week. i have monday off next week, so with the four day weekend we’re going to womad, a music festival in adelaide, and then we’re at aldinga for the rest of the long weekend. i’ve booked my early morning poetry class with geoffrey nutter for the sunday morning there. i’m really excited for that. i’ll put my phone away, be on the beach and not worry about looking good. i’ll journal, too. and drink. spiced rum. meed. red wine. it’s going to be a bit weird to be alone whilst i know people are off having a good time in the big crowds at the music festival, but it will be good for the soul. it’s not that different from when i was away. i am happy to be going for friday, anyway, to see pj harvey. it’s lots of money, and i’m grateful. last year i didn’t go at all. i am afraid of being forgotten

hears to that. i surely need to deal with something, like really get my hands into a thing i’m enjoying. i imagine it’s like pottery, and sculpting. that’s what i’ve been doing with writing. on friday-saturday, anyway. but then i also have homework to do tonight. i won’t have much time to read or lay down on the floor and stretch. i won’t reply to emails or apologize for today. i probably will forget to meditate before bed. i won’t even really have the time to think. i’ve just got to take it as it comes; that’s what i hope i’m choosing to believe. i’d like to please myself this week, and be engaged. present, active. i don’t want to let myself down too easily. i seem to think that’s all i do. but i’ve dug this hole! i’ll find my way out as i always do!

fundamental disagreement

march 2nd, 2025

i am worried about you, so i watch you move on the way home so that i know you’re safe. you’re safe and home, you’ve survived him. after i leave the car, i am worried about you. like my mum, who i would’ve been worried about too. i know you will be fine, but i worry anyway, because either way you will get on with it. without really ever acknowledging the joy which is depleted. i am sorry, because i have it. i have to keep my mouth shut and not smile, i have to not try and balance the scales between the speed and the loud angry sigh, because i want you to feel understood; i do not want to try and make you believe anything. i will be there, anyway. i watch you get home safely and i am so happy; you’ve made it. there you are. thank god for your hands and our disagreements and i know you’re healthy. we showered together like children, and thank god we are. thank god we’re children. i just want to swim in your pool. i’m really aware of the space you take up, and it’s all right. it’s all right, you don’t need to get on with it. maybe i will think of that thing i forgot when i am sitting in maths tomorrow. you understand me; i am working on understanding you. your dimensions. you say less than i do and sometimes i think it means more, sometimes it confuses me. you mean the whole world. i’m never going to be angry with you

get free

march 1st, 2025

it’s march the first, but it doesn’t feel like it. i haven’t celebrated it. i wish it were more surreal; it only feels total. i have had many discoveries. i ate breakfast with my dad this morning and i read when it was over, my pages gently resting against the plate. i devoured that food. i sat at writer’s club and felt no good, but shortly stumbled upon a program from the adroit journal, in which they partner up young teenage writers with published authors as mentoring. it’s a summer program, so it will be my winter. i am busy thinking of what to write in my submission. i am busy trying not to get my hopes up about anything at all, ever again

i met dad after that for krapp’s last tape which was playing in the theatre. it was fifty minutes long and a post-modern philosophy play. my dad and i sat side-by-side and i clutched my seat tightly. i am afraid i will also find myself now in thirty years time quite the idiot. i already sort of do. i posted on instagram today, and felt i will one day laugh at what i put up; i am okay with it today. but i see the appeal. i see how it’s easy to claw out one’s insides when they are so caught up in themselves, and their own lives, and commenting on them. that seems to be all i do. what about this self-doubt, then?

and after that we stumbled to the exeter pub, where i have just come back from. i got a woman’s contact for baby-sitting. we’ll see if they ever text me. we’ll see if i’m ever free. i drank a glass of champagne and felt sick, and now i’m inthe park watching children run around thomas elder’s statue. nobody seems to be impressed with me. i wonder why i want them to think i am impressive. i so badly want to be impressive—today is not yet over. i intend to get out of here as fast as i can. why do i keep riding the ride?