• free time killing me every day, long stretches of hating yourself more and more, milk allowed to curdle, fruit allowed to mold
• too much possibility, always thinking what a healthier me, what a better person entirely would do with all this time. what a person with friends would do. always dying a little bit

have i always been this unhappy? what is it about a good day that makes you look back on yourself as a content person, and what is it about a bad month that makes you look back and see someone who's never not been depressed? i feel like i'm on low battery usage mode all the time, engine just barely alive, running on the smallest margin of energy. i'm too tired anymore to even think about suicide. i'm too tired anymore for anyone, unless there's sex, because i need chemical stimulus or nothing, i guess. i know it's horrific, but i feel ready for addiction. something to take hold of me. reaching out with little limp tethers for something to care about. should ask for help. should talk to someone. should just buckle down and power through another winter. should maybe just go back to bed.

• you can still cuddle

also you knew it was coming also you kind of also wanted it to end ngl tho my desire for close and positive human interaction overgrows my worry and fear

• kinda just wanna fuck lmao

• im sitting in the lobby
• sort of stomachachey; had coffee, too late, like always
• back to a window
• always hated that. anyone could be over my shoulder
• im watching 4 guys from the building
• their names are steven dan luis brian
• boy names. guy names. easy names. worn like they're born with it
• they were
• too easy too easy TOO EASY TO BE YOU
• they're playing hacky sack
• trying to get to ten
• when they hit 10 one grabs the sack
• and throws it as hard as possible at one of the others
• and i am so
• choked. dysphoria is
• the opposite of catharsis. it's buildup buildup

• are you
• are you though
• what is pain
• is pain just the chemical assurance you are miserable
• is there a line between pain and sadness at all
• if you overcome one can you overcome both
• trick question
• you will never overcome either
• good luck

• hatred is clean but often too clean
• sleep is not a waste of time; sleep is dirty and warm and free
• nobody is inspired always. dont fool yourself
• think about ropes. think about buses. feel better
• superstition is a rope too. hold on
• always leave the last sip of coffee in the mug
• always leave the first notebook page blank

• replace this text with your list
• begin each item with an asterisk

am i phasing (finally) out of existence? not to be tacky but it completely feels like i'm expending more and more energy just to stay here in this plane, or box, more to drag myself along the same trails, like a poltergeist getting too irrelevant to lift the chains and shake them. they just fall through my fingers. i've never been sick this long; i've never been lonely so long; i've never been not lonely so long (and i'm not sure i like it). bone cold and sweat hot, over and over like a strobe light, and no one will tell me the way out of this rave hell and my head is a hot indescribable hurt. lethargy like big hands. exhaustion (reprise!) and i know it's always this bad but it really feels new, each time, and i'm a bad actor trying to remember my lines but someone keeps changing them, pulling pages out, pasting over cues with fortune cookie fortunes. and yet , here we are, here we fucking...

• two cold spoons in the fridge at all times! you take em out if you've been crying and press them to your eyes till the swelling goes down. less messy than ice cubes.
• music in the mornings. i truly don't know if it works for everyone - but at least for me, sound can override exec dysfunction for a little while, or at least distract you from the brain whirlpool just long enough to get out of bed. it's like magic! i have spent entire academic years playing a song every single morning.
• feel shitty, look pretty. "at least i'm cute" is a stopgap measure but some days it can still get u thru.
• shea butter for scars
• just show up. this one's from a post going round rn but it's really true. literally just show up to the thing without expecting more from yourself. just go. don't f...

• and calls me beautiful gorgeous handsome
• the last one is an asterisk because he tries so hard to accommodate me
• because i'm a square peg
• (his fingers playing in my round hole)
• plaything toy skin piano
• hands all over me
• and i marvel at someone getting as close to this body as i am and not hating it the way i have practiced to
• likes it more than i do
• so much more
• have it
• make me someone new with your eyes and your uncalloused palms
• it's hard to enjoy a thing while simultaneously never letting yourself forget that
• it'll end it'll end it'll be over and not well

• your life's work
• what about your work's life
• what have you stolen today????
• what are you proud of anymore
• nothing? diary entries?
• deadbeat diary
• mulholland drive on repeat repeat
• anyway. anyway you're stuck between layers of concrete
• it's all right it is o kay
• everything is bright everything is fine
• fluorescent fluorescent fluorescent
• fuck.

• incompatability
• wish there was a manual
• how much guilt is too much
• how little makes you a monster
• surely this is too much
• surely every day is too much
• right?
• terror all the time
• oh my god shes never going to
• speak to you again
• too much
• itd be easy not to
• no
• god. fuck
• christ
• sorry. im really sorry
• how much can you regret something thats not your fault
• what if it is though
• what if youre just another asshole who has to be different

• how long will it last how long will it last how long will it last
• grasping at futures
• cracks in clay and cracks in wax
• chapstick never runs out
• approach and dethrone
• cohesiveness? synthesis?
• formulaic as the void
• third space between language and the mute object
• how long must the object be mute
• fixed and broken is not a true dichotomy
• hands much more important than eyes
• hands and mouth different planes
• difference of synthesis
• theory never held up to a good old boulder
• difficult to spite a thing
• and still take joy in its destruction
• resent every assumption ever made
• especially your own

• the knot you never forgot
• wonder how it could all come rushing back like this
• exercise? is that all
• a trap with slippery slidey sides
• and getting out is just like being in another one
• fixated on bridges
• god send me to hell

• think about dying
• think about death
• think less overall

• what if instead you just slept
• i mean it
• what if you gave up
• and decided the whole living thing's a wash
• and curled up again
• warm and endless
• no more disappointment
• just give it up
• what if you just spent all your time like that
• it's easiest and you know it
• people are overrated and you know it
• you'll die anyway and you know it
• the outside world is made of foregone conclusions
• stay
• in
• bed

• that will make you feel even a little better
• wearing something you like. planning outfits
• make tea and drink it slightly too hot
• clean something, anything. fill your water bottles. clear the desk.
• makeup makeup do your makeup
• braid your hair or pull a tendril out
• shower. cry
• start a new book, anything, any new book
• clean up a bookmarks list
• do even a little bit of hw
• download an album
• exercise a little, any way you can
• list the things you've eaten today

• is sitting in the shower, crying or vomiting
• is the white walls of the room and you hate them so much but you cant leave
• is the dent in the bed shaped like you
• is you hate getting drunk but youre looking forward to it more than anything
• is the blinds drawn
• is the shower, ten miles away
• is your hands paralyzed for no reason you can see
• is not this

• is really all thats asked

• strangled with $5 earbuds
• hit by brand new dodge ram
• shot in forehead by sniper
• shot in neck by sniper
• stabbed through neck from behind
• disemboweled and hung from ceiling
• beaten to death with aluminum bat
• shot in temple with handgun
• shot in eye with handgun
• shot beneath jaw with handgun
• shot execution-style with handgun
• rifle shot to the face
• hanged
• shot through eye with arrow
• throat slit all the way across
• sledgehammer to top of skull
• grenade pressed to sternum
• garrotted with hemp rope
• hit by subway train