like Kafka, these days i have been doing a lot of thinking. the important kind, you know? well anyhow these days i have been doing a lot of inner soul searching and i have discovered a lot of things! i am so happy to finally be able to Wake Up and move forward. i think the key was being able to run through my past and clean out all of the skeletons in my closet and then move forward, you know? i guess the reason i have been sorting through the past is because i am graduating soon. i am not one for nostalgia/ these days i am just working on Remembering.  i am trying to remember Things That Are Important, Lessons From Mistakes, Things That Are Not-So Important, Et Cetera.  i am trying to enjoy the time i have. it is nice now because i am finally ready to do all of these things. things like Grow Out My Hair, which i am very excited about. (Dear Lockes, I dream of you every night. I long for the day when i can throw my hair over my shoulder or sit in the grass weaving flowers into scattered braids.)  for so long i have felt incomplete, not quite whole, a bit half-empty inside.  i used to be so passionate about so many things. i wanted to help everyone and love everything and somewhere in the past year that got lost. i think when you are in a relationship you end up giving up half of yourself.  i mean i know this is good and you gain other things, but i miss my missing half.  i want to rededicate myself to the things that used to mean so much to me. i am hoping when i move out i can really become a vegan. i think it is that i have been slumming around for so long i am finally ready to be active in all the ways that are Good. gosh i am so ready. i am so ready for anything/everything.  i am happy that things have been so well lately. since i finally have the ability to genuinely care for other people again i have been making efforts to see the people i want to see and really spend time with the ones i love. these days it is like anywhere i go i have one foot out of the circle, ready to run. no, i won't run, i am just trying not to get/stay too attached to anything. i think this is a good philosophy. is that freedom? who knows. i am reading kafka on the shore and just got into dylan thomas and charles baudelaire and just everything seems so possible these days. oh goodness i am rambling but what i mean is things are Good. i am growing up and ready to make the changes that need to be made. i am living in the moment with my eye on the future and i just want to continue to grow and move forward. i want to feel whole. i want to be free. and i know we all want love.

( you never forget )

all this Good weather and skipping school keeps me yearning for freedom. oh how i cannot wait to
fly away but Dear Spring, you have been kind and Dear Summer you have me bare-skinned and writhing 
under the sheets dreaming of you. i am dreaming of lazy days and cherry blossoms and raspberries.
last night as i stood stranded on the side of the road i couldn't help but think Where is my james dean
with messy hair and black boots a leather jacket and the bob dylan blues riding up to rescue me? lately
i am thinking that is all anybody wants: To be Loved and To Get Away. (or maybe i am just talking about me)
today as i sat outside smoking cigarettes painting paris the trees whispered Once we kissed her knees,
We remember you still.

I am sick of the winter I am sick of all this snow I am ready for the spring and beautiful picnics and painting tulips on wood fences and cutting out of class early just to lay in the park. this weekend has been quite lovely. I like being able to go out on my own and go to the book store and the record store and the antique store and then sitting in a coffee shop alone and knowing that I am alone but that it is okay because as I look around I realize that we're not alone, really. and then I go over and watch films with a friend and come home to an empty house and smoke more cigarettes and play my new records and flip through my new books and et cetera. I am very excited for what is to come these days (because it can only get better so I might as well look forward to it). I don't know. did I mention I am sick of winter?

these days all i do is daydream. daydream or make lists. or daydream about making lists. 
it is hard to say how i am feeling really because my mood changes from moment to moment and i know i am supposed to cherish the present and not tihnk about the future but all i can do is count down the days so lately i spend my time thinking about the future which is really not so bad considering it is really very exciting. i count down the days until i am free and daydream about what life will be like and make lists of goals. Goals: 
-to grow out my hair, because i am always cutting it for Change but a real change would be committing to growing it out but really i can't commit to anything right now
-budget in an lp a week because gosh there is so much i am missing
-work on my new sketchbook 
-start sewing again
-spend my paychecks on Important things (like trips to the City)
-master oil paints
-have a constant supply of weed and wine
see? these all are Good and Productive things, right? well maybe not but really i am happy (sometimes) to get to spend time on myself, finally. i am trying to grasp that it is okay to be Alone and I don't need you and et cetera. lately on lonely mornings i go into town when nobody is really out yet and walk around and smoke cigarettes and sit in the coffee shop where i don't buy coffee and watch the strangers and it is comforting because for a long time i forgot how to do that. i forgot how to be alone.



my sister says at twenty-two all of the boys will have matured,
life will really start to begin,
and the world will finally love me back.

at seventeen i am ready to start loving myself.

oh goodness i am feeling as though i am back at square one. why am i back at square one? because i am such a stupid silly girl. but it is okay. "i am not disappointed in you," she says, "you forget you are only human," she says, "what do you think you are going to do now," she says. i am disappointed in myself why must i be human i am going to pretend like Things Never Happened and Certain People Don't Exist The Way You Hoped For Them To. i think this is a good plan. i will see you and we will pretend like nothing's happened and like we are both trying to forget about each other (we are). i think another good plan is to start focusing on myself because when i said that last time it turned into "the answer is i will become a socialite and go to all of these parties every weekend" and that is okay i like having fun but i also need to really start moving on and focus on living my own life. what i realized is he loves himself. he loves himself and has so little love to give to other people. i do not love myself. i have never really loved myself and that makes it easy for me to love everyone else more. in english i have to swallow the pain when we discuss the novel. Hello, My name is Catherine Barkely, i think. i want to ask him if he's ever read a farewell to arms i want to show him that i understand and i want to know if it is okay to pretend. but sometimes even i am tired of pretending. sometimes i don't know if everything means something or if i should just accept that nothing means anything. i think the former only lets you down. i am slowly waking up.

 
 



so i am thinking who needs a boy when i have all these boys and all these girls to sing me their songs that are much better than yours. or when i have pretty patterns to look at and antique typewriters to fix. no really what i am thinking is this is positive i am excited to spend time on me and do what i want to do and what i have to do. now i have time to do all the cute things he would never do with me. really i am thinking this will be much healthier because really, just looking through this very journal alone, it's apparant that i was under his wraps for far too long. i am excited to have been able to see who my true friends are and to have reestablished so many lost relationships. on sunday my sister took me out and we drove around and stopped at the scenic point  and then ate breakfast at a peculiar diner in a ghost town and it was so nice to be able to speak with her again. last night nina rushed over and just layed in bed with me even though i was sick and crying and we just watched a movie and that's all i needed. this weekend i will finally look for a job and finish applying to college and do things for me and not have to wait for him to call. i am going to colour my hair and finish that painting and go to thrift stores across the state and be free. i am excited for all of these possibilities, but really i am scared. i am scared for the first time i hear that song or find his things lying around or for the first time he calls and tells me he misses me i am scared because i want to stay strong and i don't want to collapse into him again. i don't know how this is going to work out in the end or how i will feel when those things occur but for right now, in this moment, i am free.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.


well i don't know much about how to handle this or what to do or why such things must happen.  i know that he was my first love and i knew it the day i met him. i know now that he never really loved me the same and he never can because he won't let himself and that's why it really has to be the end this time and we can't succumb to it again in a few weeks when he know's what he's missing. i think that is the hardest part. i know i've never been in this much pain and i don't even know what to do. i know i don't understand any of it how it's so unfair and why do i always have to be the one hurting? i'm disappointed that i can't be as strong as i had hoped. i don't know. first love. any love. it may be all you need and gosh it's about all i believe in but really is it worth all this? i don't know. and i don't understand how it's so easy to stop loving me when all i've done is love him and i can't even say why. i don't know. i can't even think straight, everything hurts.


"sometimes no one will love you when all you want is someone to love you and then everyone will love you and you will be breathless standing smoking wondering why."

he said "look at your hands they are so small 
your heart must be so tiny, 
make a fist, look,
it must be bursting with all that love you have to give."
and it's true it may be small you may be right and boy do i have a lot of love to give
and boy do i love giving it to you but gosh
i hope your big hands don't squeeze it all out of me.
i hope you haven't stopped loving me.
we finally got things right, you know?

(please do not stop loving me)

well it needs some work but most things do.  last night i couldn't sleep.  was it that i was thinking of you? (probably) well i couldn't sleep (a) and was very probably thinking of you (b) so instead i stayed up till four:am smoking cigarettes reading tearing papers and pasting pages and watching those films i love so dearly.  it really was a productive night!  i finished leonard cohen's the favourite game, which is the most beautiful thing i have read in a very long time. i read a poem or two for class went through old photos and wrote letters in my mind.  anyway yesterday really was beautiful and i am glad because lord knows this week will go down in history under Horrible.  but it is so nice to cut lengths of schooltime and do the things we do and drive down streets lined with sycamores and run into friends in coffee shops. what i mean is, things will always get better (if you want it)

(I'M WAITING FOR MY MAN.)

or perhaps to travel the world?

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it in to my ear
Without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe. 



this is the most beautiful thing i have read in a long time.

I'm on my way back to finding myself.

 i like to tell myself I will not speed anymore. I will not lie to my parents. I will stop smoking cigarettes and liking this boy. last night i drove seventy five through the twisty roads of the Countryside. last night i lied to my parents. last night we slipped out at twelve:am to buy cigarettes and i still like you. at three:am as you slept soundly next to me i stared at the ceiling trying to recite in my mind every poem i could think of.  with the faint smell of smoke still all around us, i couldn't help but think "My plant, his chair, the ashtray we bought together."  Later, when i could still Not sleep, i memorized each crack in the corkboard, each watermark on the ceiling, and tack left in the wall.  i practiced every position possible.  i like to tell myself This situation is okay. I am okay with this. but the truth is neither of us are truly free from the other, and why should we be? in two months you will leave and move on to a bigger world and endless opportunities; why not spend these two months with me? sometimes i wonder if you mean all those things you say. does he mean all those things? sometimes i wonder if you are saying those same things to somebody else. and sometimes i would like to ask What are we now? what i really mean by all of this is If we are just friends why then were there no pillow fights? (or did you miss the point)