the thunder is coming very sporadically. there is such full silence in between claps that i forget it's storming and then i jolt a little when the sound shoots into my ears. it's like this eighties pop song i know. i listened to it on repeat for a while because i couldn't work out the clapping in the background. it seemed like they'd let some kid into the studio and let him randomly clap along. eventually i worked out the pattern. but yeah, this thunder is like that song, before i worked out that they clapped in the middle of the second line of the chorus, but only every third time. or something like that.

it's like my life.

actually it's not, i just wish i was deep and had hella awesome weather metaphors to describe my existence. coz like weather metaphors aren't cliched AT ALL (she said, a storm brewing in her mind).

i really like storms. not the running through rain hair being ruined sliding in puddles fogging up glasses water traveling up soaked bottoms of jeans freezing through layers of clothes bit. but the rhythmic patter of rain against the roof numbing my brain to sleep thing works for me.

i feel very, very sad because neither of you have anything you could be bothered to say to me.
i am angry because you suck up to other girls, you giggle and make jokes, you ask them questions like you care about their answers, but you don't even say good morning to me when i step into the bathroom everysingleday.

i trained furiously tonight. i dared the clock to go faster. i sprinted repeats. i made every set harder for myself than it had to be. i shoved my arms through the water and i boiled the water with my toes. it's lucky that the water doesn't have feelings. it's lucky that i had the water to take it out on.

at dinner i had to mumble i need to go to the bathroom and virtually race out of the room so you two wouldn't see me crying and the hate and disgust in your eyes wouldn't permeate deeper.

i had this crazy misconception
that little sisters
were supposed to
look up to their big sisters.

discussing wardrobe for saturday dinner.
as you do.


mango says:
can you wear the grey shirt? i’ve only seen you wear it twice
David says:
definitely
David says:
it's one of my favourites anyways
David says:
what three shirts do you think you'll wear?
mango says:
lol
mango says:
its so true


ah fashion.

i haven't said enough about him because i don't want to spread the word so hotter girls will steal him, you know?
but this man
is amazing.
he's also terrible for this blog because he is my social life; he borrows from my spare time (and doesn't feel like giving it back).
but that's not the point.
because he is nicer to me, for no reason, than anyone ever. i can be the MOST ANNOYING PERSON and he will just laugh at me and cry with me as is appropriate.
so when i'm hating myself and extracting bits of my brain,
thinking too much and too hard,
he will be loving me and carefully putting all the bits of my brain back into my head, where they belong.
and without explaining anything, those gooey brain bits always seem to fit better after he's fixed me.

***

he grips my hands and looks into my eyes and implores me genuinely to believe it's not true. but i feel so deeply that this relationship would be better without me. i'm trying, my love, to believe it. i really am.

***

i trust god plenty. but i don't trust myself.

i agonise every night over decisions i've made, decisions i will make, decisions that weren't mine to make in the first place. i lie flat on my stomach because my heart's too heavy to sleep on my back. there's wheels turning and the day's conversations re-working themselves and a book sitting under my glasses next to my bed for when all the noise becomes interminable. and there's some sheep jumping stuff thrown in too. and i'm getting a glass of water. and i'm begging my eyes to shut over one of mum's tabloid magazines. there's sitting up and lying down and trying out every inch of my pillow. there's an opened window. a shut window. much-treasured verses of poetry. grand lists of things to do and ideas to fail. there's a clock ticking, fast and slow at the same time. there's me, and there's no one else.

and it's three ay em and suddenly the night stops. dad stops snoring a few doors along and lara's curtains stop rustling. absolutesilence. i am paralysed and i am bursting from my skin. the world has stopped spinning, and i'm the only one left on it, the ruins of a circular ship dead in the sky.

and at some point i drift off into what masquerades as sleep, but my consciousness is never completely muffled.

***

every time you brush my hair from my cheek i know it's worth the risk.

what to say? the world is inside out, and i am squished in the middle.

today i got up at nine ay em as in the time four hours earlier than my average holiday rolloutofbed time. I AM TAKING OVER MY LIFE and no, doctor phil is not to blame--after all, i haven't been waking up on time to see any midday television. february was supposed to be my let's do nothing month but instead it's been my let's ruin my body clock month. two weeks and counting where insomnia and an inability to say good night have joined forces to take me down. down, down, down to the town where breakfast happens in the afternoon and the nights are lonely and restless and frustrating.

so yes I'M TAKING CHARGE mr insomnia, mr un-good night. i woke up at nine ay em and my already set alarm testifies that this is the pattern for the future. i will write lists everywhere and i will cross items off. i will achieve things. i believe in myself. i believe in list-making. i believe in nine hours sleep a night--and i mean night, not nine hours sleep a morning.

i am such an inspiration to myself and the world and other people like you etc.

i need a tan!
(and so does the world, apparently.)

9.36pm.
an instant. a moment.
an immense sense of calm.

god has picked up my heart,
dusted it off,
and returned it lighter than before.

my boyfriend is quoting scripture to me. my sister is singing in the next room. the rest of my family is silenced by the flickering tv screen. i can hear voices playing with each other next door, drifting through windows, muffled by walls. i can smell the night. i can feel the wind coming over and sucking up the heat. bellies are digesting dessert and eyes are starting to droop. clocks are speeding towards monday while parents tuck in five year olds and argue with fifteen year olds who don't want to admit that the day is over. the lonely get lonelier, the happy get happier, as tiredness sets in and the world becomes jagged with too-sharp contrasts.

i went to bulli on a sleepy train
(sleepy in that i slept on the way)
i watched bad movies with good friends
i got really hungry and then ate too much thai
i slept for nine hours
i admired the beach
and
i felt awkward and obvious and distanced
i was a bit slow to laugh at the jokes
i was a bit quick to say stupid things.

the boy is addicted to strong bad emails.
ADD
IC
TED.

i ask him a question and he says "with marzipan's radish we're gonna win the competition" and he notifies me when a new email is put up and i think his homepage is now homestarrunner.

AND he has wild dreams of emailing strong bad and enticing him to drag his boxing gloves away from the newly-makey-outey the ugly one and fall in love with him!!

i am one hundred million per cent serious and like so jealous right now.

i am trying hard not to believe it but i think he cares more about this weird looking little guy...
than he does about his poor girlfriend!!

when i was twelve i was totally in luv with this guy i trained with. he was fourteen and he had charm but not good looks. his sister told me he liked me too and we both found our way into the same lane at morning training and swum up and down oooh so romantic. he tried to teach me to squirt water from between my hands every morning for like two years and i could never do it. i guess he fell for some girl who could squirt water because he stopped swimming in the same lane and thus my dreams of holding hands were blown out of the water. get it? out of the water? oh.

i have loserish tendencies.

"Michael turned up and we all went inside. Once we'd been eating for awhile and Steve had felt the need to point out every other attractive woman he noticed, he then told me that if I wanted sex, he could introduce me to some female friends of his. "They don't want a relationship, but they're up for some fun!" he said. I pointed out in reply that it was actually a relationship I wanted. He looked confused. "Besides", I continued, "even if I did want sex just for the sake of sex, then how do I know I wouldn't get an STD from them?" Steve insisted that they didn't have any STDs because "they don't sleep with just anyone". However, if they're willing to have sex with me, then I'd bet that they just might. Then I pointed out that no contraceptive is 100% foolproof and I don't want to risk becoming a father at this point in time. Steve counted that by saying that if she got pregnant, she could just get an abortion. I responded that I wasn't a fan of killing my children. Steve chewed on his steak."

best paragraph ever. mark is my homeboy.

all i can think of is places i'd rather be. all i want is to not be here, now. i want to be where the sun shines more often than not, in a house i decorated myself, with starry calm nights and days where everything looks especially bright. i want saturating colours lighting up my green eyes, and drying my tears.

i want to be someone else, a better daughter in a happier family. one of those families who seem to have picked each other before birth. parents who still hold hands. siblings who ask each other how was your day, and who even answer honestly. a family where the fights always end up comical and the dinners never get lonely. a group of friends who happen to look like each other.

i wish i enjoyed house work. i wish i was better at fighting my natural laziness.

i want to be loved without what i achieve. i don't want to be my uai, my swimming medals, my singing ability, my university results. i am not 99.95, i am not gold, i am not a solo, i am not a high distinction average. i want to be loved, just because. because i am me and though everyone can say that they can't steal mine away.

i don't want to look into her eyes and feel the thin covering of self-esteem i've delicately wrapped around my heart ripped off, one little piece at a time. i don't want to suddenly become conscious of my new-found chubbiness, notice how uncomfortable i feel in extra layers of skin. i don't want to feel the maze of insufficiencies and flaws reaching to the back of my skull. i don't want to shudder uncontrollably at the blemishes and imperfections that collect at the bottom of my soul, like filthy garbage, bursting and belching inside a grimy bin. my complexion is even uglier under the surface, and i can't survive when it swims into focus as a reflection in her eyes. i have to avert, cover, squish shut my eyes.

but the weather's been pretty cloudy lately. and there's no self-decorated home, no calm nights, and certainly no bright colours. there's just this house, this same old circular argument, these familiar raised voices, and what looks like hatred in those pupils. there's just me in a darkened, messy room in front of a back lit computer screen. there's nowhere to go, and there's no way to stop these relationships from exploding at almost regular intervals.

dear diary,
why don't you ever write back?
i really feel
like this relationship just isn't going anywhere.
i mean, it's very one-way, isn't it.
love alix.

character profile: kerensa

this girl is the phat personified.
she squishes thousands of personality into a tiny little body and she lets the awesomeness seep out in stories told superfastwithoutbreaths.
she is intensely independent and she will never let you help because she knows (and it's true) that she can do everything better herself.
she wears dangly sparkly earrings and jeans.
she has a talent for pulling ugly faces in photographs but still looking uberhot.
she's aiming to get four hds at uni this semester and for her that's a realistic goal.
she drives me everywhere and she never ever complains when i'm being annoying like asking for another lift or complaining about stuff like the world.
she puts up tents really well.

i just tried to clean my room but it was four thousand degrees approximately and so i stopped. i think i perspired more than i cleaned so now there's a fine layer of sweat dripped all over the thick layer of dust that coats my room. how's that for beautiful evocation of imagery?

i am a literary genius.