Oh. right.

We're supposed to forget about the rest of it. No one wants to pay attention after those two, the scene is old when the blood dries.

What a stupid kid I was. Stupid stupid stupid.

Walking into my freshman year of high school thinking, "Hey! This'll be great! I'll just please everyone and my life will be smooth sailing."

Somewhere in my grand equation I forgot the important detail that I'm human. Don't you hate it when that happens? Makes things more difficult than you intended.

And now I'm choking. Choking on stale religious women and hesitant feeble men. Choking on a world that scooped me up and made me invincible and is digging my grave with equal ease. Choking on knives and words and lies and the fact that life will never, ever, ever be fair.

But I'm supposed to be swallowing. "Just the way it is!" The overeager newcomers shout. "Pick yourself up and keep walking!" Close your eyes, think of the good things. Just swallow.

That's what you'll never get about my wounds. They're not bullet holes in my chest - shallow and round and easy to clean. It's not like knife wounds - small and deep and quick to close up, even with the pain.

No no. My wounds are of another genre. I am burned. I ooze blood, and pain, and bitterness and naivety and fear and rage and steel. Every time I move this process just starts again. Every time someone decides to touch me, they just pull of what small scabs I had.

That's the thing about burns. Just breathing reminds you that they're still there. You never forget.

Even when your skin finally heals and goes back to that submissive shade of beige, your arms don't forget. Your legs remember with those clumps of skin that will never retake their original position. They are your final reminder.

You think I'll get amnesia? That my brain will just bleach out the memories of your fiery accusations and replace them with white?

I'm escaping. I don't care if every human I ever knew wishes I were dead, I'm getting out. I want my own life. I want freedom. I want...to breathe.

i swear, it's bad to know as many single girls and guys as i do.
because now i can't listen to stephen speaks.
or anything having to do with romance.

because it just reminds me of all the people i know that used to love those songs.
but then things change.

whatever.
i'm ending this, because i don't want to elaborate.
and my journal hides secrets much better.

i've decided my xanga is to miserable.

everytime i write it's about something sad, or painful, or confusing.

but i never talk about times like right now, hanging out at the kemps, waiting for kara to emerge from the bathroom and telling chris to stop talking.

i don't know why i don't, but i'm going to start trying.

i think i'll get off now, i've been on the computer too long, it's frying my brain.

Peggy