I'm nervous, now.

It was simple enough. You reached in and pulled something out; I got curious, maybe even addicted to the feeling. Then I shut up, closed like a box, don't I always do that.

A pendulum swinging from spontaneous to predictable.

Finding things around the house. Little lost trinkets, scattered about like heaps of debris left by a tornado. Your hair. Your eyes, subconscious images floating to the surface of this black pool I'm swimming in. There was a dream, I remember, in which I lost things like this, and drowned in them, beneath the incomprehensible weight of them. I choked on the water and gave up, I held all of your burdens in my arms like I said I would, but I was too weak to stay alive. You cannot even begin to imagine how sorry I felt then.

The guilt wraps me up like a cold cloak. The feeling of not being enough, of not being ____ enough or _____ enough. "Fuck you!" In that dream I had, I remember telling you, and it didn't even matter. You know I've tried to throw this off but it clings to me. This feeling of constantly being freezing, barely there; sometimes, I completely disappear. You say something, I don't answer. I've left the confined space of thoughts and wandered off. I've gotten myself lost.

I can't be certain of anything now. As if I have been at all recently. Time slides through my fingers, I sleep it away. Stare at the screen, hide under blankets and pretend I don't exist. I was sitting at the breakfast table, my head cocked to one side, looking at that thick-bladed knife, thinking, Left hand picks it up, jams it into the left side of my neck, slit my throat open. But I'd be okay, we'd all laugh about it later. Whenever I talk to you about suicide, you say, Don't do it! Don't do it! We joke about it; makes it easier to forget those thoughts. You didn't say anything this time, probably because I just blurted right in front of everyone, so violent and yet not really shocking. Nobody really said anything.

I lied about that, I avoided it first when you asked me and then I just nodded, 'cause I didn't feel like getting into it. Maybe it would've creeped you out, or made you sick. Maybe you would've been upset with me, thought I was stupid, anything. I used to hide it under tape, but now I don't really care. I just get bored. It's not a big deal.

I said I might take this out on myself. I might throw it around; maybe hold it in, maybe let it go, maybe explode. We'll see how it goes. I can imagine my diet fluctuating, walking alone, scribbling in a ragged hand pages and pages of angsty nonsense, seeing things vividly and tuning out and losing focus and tripping over things. Who really knows. I'm not getting into a habit; I'm not going down that road. I'm not alone, I know, I know. It's just that there's all these things I have to say that I know are going to come out wrong, and I get all jittery and lose my tongue and fuck it up. I tear down tall walls with my stupid hands, watch them fall, build them back up again. Tiny little hands, but they'll douse this poor excuse for a home in nail polish remover or gas and throw a lighted match in, walk away.

That's my account, minus the sweetness or joviality or friendliness caught inbetween. Minus any important lines of speech, minus any touch or movement or gasp of air or slant of light. It's not really an accurate account at all, it doesn't make any sense, and it doesn't truly describe how I feel. So there it is. Not going to try to organize or take any conclusion from it. I suggest you don't try to sort out who the you is, because it's going to be a tiresome task, and there's more than one you that I'm speaking to, and if you guess at it, you'll be wrong anyway.

Maybe I'll have another try at this later. It sure isn't sounding like anything right now.