A gaping black hole, that's what you are. A brain with too many memories, most - no, all of which are completely unattainable. Too many fantasies, too many dreams.

It takes a toll on a girl eventually. Things start to break no matter how hard you try, and once you're not strong enough - when your fingers are too weak to pull the duct tape off its roll, you start compromising and using masking tape, Band-Aids and even scotch tape to cover the wounds, because goodness knows you can't heal them.

And you'll never stop picking at the scabs.

You dream of him - you search for him in your dreams, in your thoughts. You long to hear his voice in your head and you continue believing, frustrated but desperate, never giving up. Maybe that's what's keeping you alive.

You want someone to decide there's something wrong with you so that they will do one of two things: examine your mind and find something truly wrong, then make it go away; or take you, hold you and love you, and make it go away. That ragged black hole. Fill it, you ask, you need someone.

Sometimes you're not sure whether you'd prefer option A or option B. Most of the time, you think you would prefer B, but ...

And then sometimes you just give up. Give up and try to escape to him, the one in your head that you hear all the time - different voices, different timbres, different personalities but all, in effect, the same man: the one you wish would solve everything by simply taking you in his arms.

That's all you want ...

But you're beginning to wonder if you'll ever find him. Whether the ideal in your mind can ever be reached.

Whether you should reach for perfection and break your heart in th e attempt (and possible your mind), or content yourself with people who mean nothing and consequently you die of boredom ... and a broken heart nonetheless.

You're so lonely ... the people you make friends with are older than you and eventually fall away, more advanced, more experienced, more able. Most of your friends are miles away - and yet here you are, toughing it out, never even considering an end because you know more than you let on.

You've seen your face in the mirror, pale but still with expression, gaunt but just cheerful enough to put off but the most intent of observers.

Generally, that is only yourself. No one much else thinks to look that close, you think.

Of course, you can't be sure.

You want comfort - you seek acceptance and are truly grateful when you receive it, because as you think about it, you've basically deluded yourself into thinking you're not worth accepting - or perhaps it's just everyone else that thinks so.

You tremble when someone really, truly hugs you - yet you have so little trouble acting that you don't care about touching others: it has little to no effect on you, when it is just acting, unless of course you let it.

You're very good at acting. Almost too good, you ponder. You are isolated, yet no one thinks so. You present a perfect façade to the rest of the world - yet ice cracks eventually, and the cracks are not only visible but patched together with so much tape that you can barely tell it is ice.

Yet to touch you, you are truly cold. Getting in and thawing the shell ... it is more difficult than it may seem.

And you barely admit this to yourself.

You long to be in the arms of another, but you know full well it will not happen any time soon.

You realize shadows rae much too fun to watch as you observe the point of your pen slide across the page, leaving a scrawl of woreds in its wake. It's nearly midnight and after all this, you are watching the shadow of your pen write the words on the page.

Oh well. It's a distraction. You will continue the charade tomorrow, n'est-ce pas? Oui, bien sur ...

Like the charade had ever stopped. What is your shadow now? Is it the charade, the face you hide behind, or is it what is left of you, hiding behind the mask? No wonder you fall for the masked men, literally and metaphorically so - maybe my removing theirs, you can remove your own ... or they can.

But in the end, you're no longer sure it's a mask at all. Mood swings. Time to sleep.




No, I didn't just write this. I wrote this in July and never did anything with it.