I just organized my pictures folder. pre-college, 03-04, 04-05, and summer 05.


I can't look at myself two years ago. That's not me. I'm not her anymore, she was prettier and more idealistic and she had a purpose, or thought she did.


What turned her into me? Was it the stupid way she wore her heart on her sleeve and got it run through? Was it the pot? Was it the anime, the ramen, the dorm living, the sudden freedom?

Is this just genetic? Was she doomed to end up me the way all children turn into their parents, and it looks like I started out mom but am turning dad, running to depressed and fat and sleeping all day or wanting to.

Is this just me? am I doomed to hate myself more with every year, every failure to communicate, every kiss I wish I'd given or with I'd kept to myself, the moves I should have made earlier or not at all.

I have pictures of him and if things ever changed I would jump through hoops on fire to get the chance with him I never had.

I have pictures of the aftermath between breaking and being fixed and I was still more beautiful then than I think I will ever be again. I was miserable, I wanted to kill myself, but I was beautiful.

And it wasn't a very good fix. The patches came off, the pins wouldn't hold, the CD got scratched and the tracks are out of order and I'm all fucked up again with no Prince Charming this time to talk me through the late nights.


If I could do it all over again I would never have missed a chance to walk down those stairs, I think. I would have started sooner, I would not have let the internet be my intermediary. I would have been charming and coy and an open book waiting for him to write something on my pages, even just 'hi'. I wouldn't have waited until I was fucked up to make friends.

I did it all wrong and I wish to god I'd been better then. I wish I'd been more than a rescue effort. I wish I'd been more than a puppy saved from being put down, because I feel like an old dog now and it would have been more merciful to end it then.


I have no idea what I'm saying. Half of this is fiction, half is hormonal emotion, half is regret I will never lose until I forget his name and my own.

Write my epitaph now. "She always had a regret." I wish I'd given him what I lost anyway. It would have meant more.


Ai warned me this would happen, but I never listen.