9:00 p.m. - 01/12/03
starting to be.
FUCK YOU.
why???
Because. Because you're little and small and weak. You're bony and flaky and dumb. You're silly and stupid and kiddish. You're a freak. You talk too much and you say stupid things, and you aren't like anyone else, and no one loves you, so fuck. fuck off and die.
I'm just a kid.
That's another thing. That's such bullshit! Ok! I'm the one in charge here. I'm seventeen, and if I could help it, I'd be older than that. I'd come across as older than that. I'd be like, almost thirty or some shit. Something people can respect. But you're all "I'm just a kid" and "I need help" and I hate that. I hate you. I hate the way you're so needy and dependent and you won't let me do anything. Everyone else has to do it for you. Everyone has to stop breathing just because you have a little hurt. Fuck that. It's insane. It's totally insane. I don't want the world to revolve around you! You don't matter!
you're just mad cause I have all this power.
FUCK YOU. YOU FUCKING LITTLE KID BITCH. I bet you wanted it to happen. I bet you wanted it just like they said you did.
you're being so mean. why are you doing this to me? I'm just here to be good. I'm just a kid.
I can't be normal because of you. I can't be strong because of you. I'm all weak and stupid and small. I hate that. I try so hard, I get so far, and then all of a sudden, I can't do anything right again. You want to curl up and be a little needy kid. Well, guess what! It doesn't work anymore. It doesn't work anymore, and people are going to hate you even more than they did end.
Nobody hated me as much as you do.
It isn't fair. It isn't fair that you would do this to me. I'm not a child. I'm not a nobody. I've done everything I could ever think of doing to make myself enough, to fit in, to be right, to have friends. And you just come in with your little kid needs and you fuck it all up. It doesn't work ok? They touched you when they shouldn't have touched you. They left when you wanted them to stay. Fuck it. No one cares anymore. No one cares anymore.
I care! You get to tell your stories over and over again. Why can't I tell mine?
Mine help. Yours get in the way. Just like now.
Maybe it's the fact that I can't tell them now that's getting in the way.
You can't talk.
I thought you liked voices.
It's different for me.
Why?
Because! Because I'm older, I'm trying to figure things out, I know what's acceptable and what's not. Why do you think they left? Why do you think they hurt you? They knew. They knew you weren't enough to meet their needs or to win them acclaim. They knew you were just a plaything they could scratch away at and let go of.
Quit it. Stop.
No. You have to stop doing this.
I don't want to stop! I don't want to stop! I don't want to stop living or talking or needing or loving. I have my life, too. I'm important too. I'm not trying to fuck things up. I'm not trying to be wrong. But it isn't just your life. You want to say you were born in 2001? Fine! But I was born seventeen years ago, and I've been around, too, and you wouldn't have even gone to Rogers if I hadn't come first. If I hadn't survive until then.
I wouldn't have needed to! I wouldn't have been screwed up!
it isn't my fault! I did the best with what I had! It isn't my fault your childhood sucked. You think I picked it? You think I said, "hey, this'll be fun! let's go where no one understands and we always feel dumb and we never feel loved. let's go where all the bad things 'didn't happen' and we can't remember well enough to say that isn't true."
So you didn't choose it. You didn't fix it either.
I was a kid. All I could do was survive. You think that wasn't hard enough. And don't think that tenacity is just you. I'm "relentless" remember?- everyone's favorite word! I'm relentless. I put up with it, I fought against it. I created whole new worlds to save myself. I created casts of people to help me get through. I did everything I could think of to stay safe long enough for help to come in, and it did, and now you're bashing me because I'm not as good as you. Well, I'm the reason you're here!
But I can't *be* because of you. I can't live my life because you're still here.
Because I'm still hurt. I'm not trying to screw up your life. I'm not trying to fuck everything up. I did it all so that we could have something better. So that the shit would go away and someone would love me and someone would hold me and I could help people and tell stories and play games. I'm cute, remember? I'm silly. I'm funny. I'm sweet. I'm good, pure, innocent. I'm all these things you like, but you're scared and you're forgetting. Look, I'm not going to sabotage anything. I'm not. It's not my existence that's causing these problems; it's my pain. You remembered tonight. You remembered how far back the fear of the outside-dark stretches. You remembered all those nights I ventured out into it. It's mine. Their my fears. I learned them for good reason. I learned how to hide because there were things to hide from. So stop damning me. I'm just a baby. I'm just a kid. If you saw me in my circumstance outside you, you'd go bonkers. You'd run circles to help me. Stop telling me I'm bad. I'm not. I'm just in so much pain.
But they don't know. They'll think it's me. They'll think I'm no good, I'm not old enough, I'm not worth their time.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry that we were the youngest and people tried to trick us to have time on their own. I'm sorry that the four of them would go away and try to leave you home. I'm sorry they complained when they paid their own way and Mom and Dad paid ours because we were still little and didn't have the funds. I'm sorry that people didn't understand we didn't choose to be born when we did, and it wasn't our fault we were only so old. I'm sorry you relate best to people five years older than you and fall in love with women who don't see you as a peer, and I'm sorry that you think it would all quit if you could just get rid of the part of you that's small. I'm sorry that you look at your body now and get angry for how tiny and how taut it is. I'm sorry that you equate me with the illness because I'm not the illness! I'm not! I'm the girl who got us through, and yes, I brought that in, but what the fuck would you have done? You were given tools I didn't have; I know you know that. I know you know I would have chosen what was safe, given the choice.
I just want to be safe. I just want them to love me, too. I don't want to be stupid or too young. I don't want to make the wrong decisions or have the wrong ideas or not catch on to all the greater meanings, jokes. I don't want to be the gullible one.
I don't want to hide anymore. I don't want to have to pretend. I want us to just be enough so that no one will care how old we are.
I know it's not your fault. But I have such little control anymore. I just want to be what I have to be to be loved.
It never worked before. We tried.
I know. I know it didn't work. But I'm so scared to just let loose and be me. I'm so scared to just quit lying and let them see. They're going to hate me. They're going to think I'm a little kid and I'm not worth their time.
Maybe not.
I don't know what to do.
You have people now. Real people. They'll help.
I want to go home.
I want to not have you think I'm dumb. Listen, I want to go home, too, but I don't know how to get there. Maybe if you figure out how to quit hating and start being yourself, it'll become clear where home is.
Then can we go there? Will they let us? Will we be allowed to stay?
I don't know.
I'm really scared.
I know.
I don't say that much. I don't want them to know. I pretend it's you. It's not you. You're strong.
You know more. You have better ways. But they're still new. You're still learning.
I don't want to hate you. I'm so tired. It hurts so much. We're not really separate, you know, and hating you- I feel it, too.
Baby steps in big girl shoes.
Stay with me. Don't let me kill you. Don't let me make you hide. Fight. You have a strong voice despite how quiet they kept you. Don't let me silence it.
I'll try. Don't let me leave.
I won't. We've been abandoned so many times. The one kind I can make sure doesn't happen- the one kind that can't happen again- is me leaving me. It's all of us who are going home.
yeah. ok.
How come it's ok to cry?
because. if you don't it'll stay inside you and you'll get sick. that's too much water for a body to hold.
How come it's ok to hurt?
because you know it won't be always.
I don't really know that.
but you know you've a better shot if you let it hurt then if you try to stop it.
I'm going to try to stop hating you.
ok. good. I'm glad. I'm going to try to stop hurting - the safe way.
Feeling it.
right.
Are we ok then?
I guess...we're starting to be.
*
chord
�
�
