In my life I have had the very unpleasant experience of being attached to two manipulative, insane, selfish *******. Of course, these people I was attached to simultaneously so I was a bit of a crazed mess during that time. I was so desperate for attention and love I took it from people who would ultimately use me for their own personal gain. **** those two, specifically, thank you very much.

One I had a crush/****** attraction to, the other was my best friend. **** me, right? Well they certainly did. I may have put myself in those situations, but **** them for still taking advantage of it.

The first, I was fascinated by. He was a year older than me and seemed nice and funny and had my same humor and liked the same movies. i thought we could be compatible, who knew? So I tried it out. I hung out with him more at school, got his number, all that. We started to text a lot, and at first we just joked around and talked about things we liked,  then I started talking about him about my feelings and serious things and we got quite close.

I should have known something was up when he started getting ****** all of a sudden, and started asking for **** pictures, and trying to convince me into ****** things.

I dodged his ****** advances for some time, but eventually I caved and when we went to get ice cream once. I took off all my clothes in his car and he called me beautiful but it wasn't the type of beautiful a girl wanted to be called. He liked my body and my big ***** and my willingness to do this, not me. But still, I sort of gave him a half-assed ******* before he dropped me off at home.

Funny thing is I never even kissed that *******. Not even once. Kind of happy I didn't.

A week later, I decided to disclose to him that I was bipolar, so that he understood me better, and maybe our relationship could develop. But the second I said I was bipolar, he said he had a girlfriend. Of course the one second I'm not even caring about any romantic relationship with him, he decides to jump that on me.

I stopped texting him. I was ******. The girl he was now dating was someone he pretty much had told me was only his best friend, not anyone he was interested in, but that was obviously a lie. And the whole time he was getting closer to her and pursuing her, he was using me as his ****-talk and eye candy. Worst thing was she was a sweet girl who had some similar features to me, and I didn't want to ruin her world by telling her that her best friend and now boyfriend was a manipulative *******.

They're still dating to this day, and I know at this point it would be fruitless for me to try to stop it. She'd probably say I'm a liar or that I'm making stories up or whatever. I guess I just wish her the best of luck. The only good thing that came out of it was that he never became my boyfriend, so I didn't get lied to. I just got the occasional request for nudes or odd being hit on text that are easy to brush off. She wants to spend the rest of her life with him. I truly pity her for being stuck to that, and truly thinking he's a good guy.

Now the other. We collided as kindred souls who like writing, the arts, music, and are a little crazy. But hell did that go out there fast, and of course I didn't realize I needed to get the **** out until three years too late.

It wasn't long before the friendship turned into a competition. I'm competitive, so I won't say I'm not to blame at all, but she pretty much was the one to instigate most of it. By telling me she was better. That she was wonderful. That her work was revered by everyone, or she got special training, or that she was just so much more than me.

The girl honestly thought she was the second coming of Jesus sometimes, because she was so different and special. But also, she was tortured and misunderstood and needed loving. **** that, you needy *******. Everyone has problems. Get help and deal with them. Its cute and understandable for a few months. By three years you better get off your ******* *** and do something.

She always was the 'better' singer, because she was more trained. She was the 'better' romantic entanglements because she was so 'well-versed' in ****** things. She was always 'better' at being mature because she had gone through so much more than anyone else. She just thought she was better at everything, but at the same time would hate herself. It was awesome. She was basically saying "I'm a complete piece of awful ****, but I'm better than you!"

Sounds annoying, right? Well it was.

The one that really got me was that she always professed she was a better writer. That her writing was beautiful and poignant and tortured. Every longer story I read of hers she basically wrote about herself, used pretentious names, and every one of her protagonists was some madly tortured person who no one understood. Their lives would drastically change once they met this magical person that changed everything. That hit them just the right way. But honestly most of it was about being tortured and misunderstood, but somehow better than everyone else because of it. Ok, whatever, please sit down pretentious writer number 3,467. It just drove me nuts. She wasn't bad at it, but it was always the same thing. Being tortured, or bitter, or being grossly in love with someone. It was just so horribly repetitive and outlandish I couldn't stomach most of it. To this day every time I read some of her pretentious work i want to set her on fire and slowly watch her burn. She may be a better singer, she may be a better tortured soul, she may even be a better starving artist or whatever.

But actually writing variety and real people and not repeating the same thing over and ******* over again?

Please, honey, I got you beat.

I guess I'm just sick of them. I'm sick of what they did to me, what I let them do to me, and who I became with them. I was selfish and meek and competitive and always trying to prove myself to them. I know who I am, and they don't deserve my attention or even me. **** them.

I know writing will get me somewhere. I'm not the best writer ever, but I know how to write. I always have. I have finished novels. I'm working on more to come. I have the drive and ability to do this, and I don't want to be the cliched ******* starving artist. I don't want to be poetically tortured or whatever the **** pretentious ******* strive for. I just want to be a human writing stories for other humans. And maybe it'll mean a lot to someone one day. It already does to me.  


I don't need flaky ******* who want nothing from me but to use me for their selfish gains. I'm me. I'm happy. I can be a writer and artist without being a complete ******* about it. And I don't need them.

I got this.

I spend a lot of time worrying about what other people dream, what they want from life, and making it happen. I always try to play roles, like the good student, or the sweet daughter, or the funny niece, or the counseling friend, or the reliable sister. But what do I want? What do I dream?

For a long while it was three simple things. Kids, animals, writing, and I never questioned or developed any of it. I mean, I had a relative idea of dates or amounts of kids, and relative writing ideas, and relative animal ideas, but nothing solid.

But today, though it may be f little interest to anyone else, I'm going to flesh out my dreams. I owe it to myself.

I want to publish a novel. Particularly a social commentary. Particularly something important to me, like mental health, the environment, relationships, family, etc. And particularly something that people may like one day. I'd love to have a novel that people know. It would be really special.

I want to have kids. At least one, preferably two, livable three, pray to god no more. And you know what, I'll love any kids I have, but I really want a girl. I want a little ball of crazy who can be a pirate or a princess and follow me around and call me mommy and cuddle on my lap and let me read her stories and be my baby girl. Maybe I'm crazy superficial, but the cake topper for me would be the ability to name her Alice. My little hero of Wonderland. I mean, the white picket fence dream is to have one boy, one girl, but I guess we'll see. If I get no girls, I'll name something else Alice. If I get two girls, I better pick one super meaningful name for her, because only one is not fair.

I want to see Africa. The animals there have always been my favorites, and I feel they're just so wild and crazy and different. There are deserts, forests, savannas, lions, zebras, okapis, all of it! Its always just seemed so wonderful to me and I've always wanted to see it in person.

I want to take my kids to Disney World. I want them to feel the wonder I felt as a kid, and fall in love with the magic I loved as a kid and even now. Maybe like I fell in love with Wonderland and various other worlds Disney created, maybe they can find their own worlds that resonate with them and make them feel safe.

I want to find or build a house for my family and decorate with love. I have art skills, I can decorate everywhere. Disney rooms, book rooms, video game rooms, all of it. I just want our hearts to be strewn across the walls and be a place of comfort for them.

I want to get married to a man I am madly in love with. Obviously, I think right now I'm with a man I could easily love the rest of my life. I wish with every fiber of my being that the home I dream of, the kids I want, the books all over, can all be things I have with him. But I won't make promises to myself that I don't know what will happen. God knows that in this second I want no one else, but I cannot force myself on the person I will be in the next twenty years. I can only dream all of this will be with him.

I want to create art. Not atypical art, with paint or pencil, but with crafts and words. They are beautiful pictures that I'm good at making, and I'd like to not only make them for family and loved ones, but maybe one day sell them and do more than just be that ever-writing author stuck in their study. Maybe I'm crazy, whatever, but I want it all.

I want to graduate college. Not only because I'm already in it, and I will enjoy the time I have, but I do want it over with as well. I know everyone's going to yell at me and say shut up they are the best days of your lives, but people said that about high school too. I enjoyed my time, but I look forward to today and tomorrow much more than I enjoy looking back. I want to graduate and have a lovely time at college, but I also don't want to spend forever here. I want to learn what I can, make friends for life, make connections, and then start the rest of my life. Start being a professional writer.

I want to start keeping an open dialogue with my audience, not just here, but on other social medias, so there is a connection even before I publish my first book or the ones to follow. I want to be an approachable author. I want to seem human, not like some unattainable, far away thing for young authors to look at. I want to be real.

I want to publish a poetry book. Obviously I'll wait another year or two, and compile the best ones, but i think it could be fun. See me write novels? Well see me write short things too. I know most authors/writers pick a niche, but after years of trying to find mine, I don't think I want one. I just want what I want.

I want to write a memoir. Though I use a pseudonym, one day I want to grow the confidence and strength to write as me, and tell people not just the stories that go on in my head, but the stories that are going on in my life. Hell, maybe I'll call it something cheesy like "The Girl Behind Grace" or something super cheesy like that haha

I want to start a bipolar group wherever I raise my kids. I mean, I'm sure with the way I am and how the person I'm with is, we'll have quite a few years of adventure. A lot of years. But I will put my foot down and say for the sake of kids we need to settle, at least for a good twenty years. I want to be a leader and help others like me where I live, i want to help people feel better. This life isn't easy, and we deserve help and a group and a community just as much as any book club.

I want to work on my baking/cooking chops. I want to be so awesome at baking and cooking that all the kids want to come to my house for dinner and I can make my kids their own badass birthday cakes. Maybe even make cakes for friends and neighbors for a bit of money. It will be awesome.

I want to visit my family at least once a year. I know that may not work out, but I don't want to lose them in all my crazy life that I plan. They may be out there and need help but I do love them, and I want my kids to have a good sense that they have a huge family that loves them so much.

I want pets. Crazy pets. Turtles and dogs and pigs. Those are the ones I really want. Dream world says one turtle, one pig, two dogs. It'll be absolutely crazy cool. What kid gets to go to school and say they have a pet pig? my kids.

I want a garden. I'll work on fleshing out that idea. I just want to be outside more. I love outside.

I want to fall in love with my life more and more every day. I want to have fun with my family. I want to play video games, a write like a madwoman, and be a good mom, and take care of myself, and make my home and life beautiful. I want everything to be worth it at the end of the day, even when not all things are ok.

I want a lot, I know, but a girl can dream, right?

Haven't been here in awhile, have we?

So I know its stupid to be careless, and as a writer I should always care. Well I'm saying **** that for a night. I almost put please in that sentence, then I realized I care little what you or whoever thinks. Tonight I'm alone, and I myself will deal with that.

I hate being tired. If sleeplessness came along with no tired side effects for me, I would do it constantly. But no, absolutely ******* not, I cannot get what would be convenient for me. I'm yawning left and right but i can't seem to get tired enough to lay down and pass out. Awesome.

Even hallucinations are finding it easier to get on my mind than sleep. I mean thank god they only lasted about an hour but for Christ ******* sake's, really?  This is a highly important week of my life, getting the final strands of my summer ****-storm ******* before I let myself win d down the summer, and I get this ****? Insomnia, incessant depression/tiredness, only to go away enough to give me a few hours of peace before refusing to let me go to ******* sleep.

I don't need this.

*******, body. I'm getting up between the hours of 7-8 if you like it or not. I'm spitting in your ******* face and telling you to sit the **** down. You wanna fight me? You're getting one hell of a fun sleepless day. I am getting **** down tomorrow, including the **** you didn't let me do today. *******. May I repeat that in the clearest, loudest of tones. ****. YOU. BODY.

I refuse to let everything fall apart just as I think I've got it sorted. This is not, will not, happen to me.

Just when I think I got things going right for me, you like to **** it all up. Not only you, but the universe too. I think I've found a place I belong? I get moody and needy as **** and scare people off and push them away, and get attached to the worst *******. I **** up my grades so much I can only hope to salvage them into not failing grades. I finally seem stable and happy, got everything going right, and school ******* ends. And I think its smart to get off my meds. I am such a *******. Worse, I get blood clots in my lungs so there go all my meds and for a good month I go into deep spiraling depression that almost ends the best relationship I've ever been in ,and the only one I hope to ever have again. I start getting my ******* **** together, and at the pinnacle week where I need to finish sorting it all out, you decide to flake.

Well *******, you're not allowed to.

I'll probably hate myself for this soon, but I need to push through. I will not let you **** me in and ruin what I've been working towards. So buck up, deal with tomorrow as it comes, and stop being such a ******* *******. Thanks.

This isn't really a poem. Or it is. I'm not sure. Its something.

I'm tired and after this poem will go to bed. I need bed. Everything is so complicated. Life is so complicated.

Love is complicated.

Please shut up romantic twits, including me. Not just romance. All love.

I don't reach out to friends enough. This is my fault.

My friends don't reach out to me enough. This is their fault.

I should call my family more. That's a simple fact.

And yesterday I was constantly spewing internally about how perfect my boyfriend is. I mean, he's pretty great, but not perfect. No one is. He's perfect when it counts, and that's what matters. And he loves me. A lot.

I'm listening to sad love songs. I have no clue why. I felt compelled, even though I have nothing to be sad about really. Nothing is wrong, or at least I don't think. Is there?

I don't know with my head.

Its turns and winds and an endless staircase of confusion. Its Wonderland. Its a mess. Some days its crazily planning way ahead into the future, some days it can't even plan the next five minutes.

I mean what's nice is lately it tends to plan things with my boyfriend, but I digress.

My back hurts. My knee hurts. I'm tired.

I want magical important words to spew from my fingertips right now but i simply cannot find them. My heart is broken. I'm rejecting even the words' love. The end's beginning. Or the beginning is ending. I know nothing right now.

My head is cloudy, my eyes are heavy, but I feel there's more. That there's something important right behind my eyelids and I need to dig it out before I fall asleep. Should I get some knives, a scalpel, carve it out for my sanity's sake?

I was here.

I guess that matters. I tried. But ******, sometimes trying isn't enough. My boyfriend likes to say, there is no try, only do and do not. And i want to do. I  love to do things. Sometimes they just don't do.

Homework titles swarm my head. Broken Glass. Change. For Writing. Fat is not a Fairytale. Human.

Guess even the stories that have nothing to do with me have my heart in them. So why is my heart eluding me now, when I feel like I might need it most? I'm blowing this out of proportion. I do that. Someone once told me I feel too much for attention. Maybe I do.

Another said I didn't know true depression. One said if he can make himself will himself to be better I have no excuse. Several said I was selfish and a tiring person to be around, because I made everyone walk on eggshells. Because I was a burden. Maybe they're right. Maybe I've been stubborn and fooling myself this entire time. Maybe its all my fault.

I've been blaming genetics and events but ****, maybe the answer is attached to the brain I find so unruly. Maybe its me.

The people who surround me now make me think otherwise, but what if they turn out just the same. What if I **** up everyone I touch. What if I turn them all away. Life can do terrible things to people, you know.

If they want to leave, its ok. I'll remember them though. I remember everyone who leaves. They leave pretty scars on my heart that I like to count late at night, like battle wounds proving myself that maybe I'm strong, maybe I'm not what they say.

But who knows, according to them its all my fault.

Who knows anymore. I like to think I'm human, but after years of being told you're a monster, its pretty hard, right?

Makes sense that I get so close, so broken by those words. I am deformed, and I am ugly, and those are crimes for which the world shows little pity. I am a monster, only a monster, and I must obey and stay in here.

I put up a pretty front but eventually someone gets in. Maybe its brave of me, or stupid. They come in and they promise they see me and will not turn away, but they always do. They always defend me, but put me aside. They never pick me. A face as hideous as my face was never meant for heaven's light.

But then an angel smiled at me, and kissed my cheek without a trace of fright. I dare to dream that he might even stay for me, I swear it must be heaven's light.

But in the nights, when I'm alone with my thoughts, I'm so afraid that I'll push him away. That he won't stay, that I won't be enough, that he'll turn astray because I'm too broken.

But then I look at him and I realize though I loved those before, they have never been him. He is kind and understanding and makes me smile and makes me completely forget I am a monster. Maybe with him I'm not. Its beautiful and terrifying, because I know I love him, and i could love him forever. But if I push him away, if I ruin this too, If I can't love him then who?

I've never believed in soulmates, I always thought it was stupid and silly and still kind of do. But if that stupid, silly thing exists, I'd be almost convinced he was mine. Hell, three months in and we were talking about kids and love and nothing about it felt forced or too early. I was worried because of what others would think, how everyone else would find it rushed and crazy. But I guess we are crazy.

I'm crying out of joy and sadness and fear and all of it right now and I can't keep it straight.

I always thought home was back where my extended family was, where I was born and ripped from when I was young. And its still one of my homes. I was for years desperate to go back, but I found my college to be home too. My friends, my freedom, my life is there.

But the best home I've ever discovered is the one I have when I'm with him. I would follow his crazy, ******* to the ends of the earth.

I just want to be home. With him and at college. I love my family, but this isn't my place. This isn't where I belong.

I almost died here, literally. I'm ready to go back to living.

My joints all hurt. The night is threatening me, and my body is succumbing. But the ramblings were nice. They were reflective. They were something. They were complicated. They were love. They were me. They were you.

They were a snapshot of life.

I'm somewhere and nowhere.

Hear me out. This isn't meant to be profound or riddling, just me. Granted I throw up walls like a kid who ate too much cake on his birthday, but today its just me. I promise.

I know that can hard to believe, even for me. Some days I'm euphoric, some days I'm broken, or bitter or boisterous or batty. But today, I'm in between. Not in the extreme sense I'm used to, where I'm either depressed like crazy and happy like crazy and mad like crazy. None of me is crazy right now. And oddly enough that terrifies me.

I'm not happy, but I'm not sad. I'm not even feeling nothing. I'm ******* normal. I'm fine with where I am but at the same time I'm progressing forward, happily. Is this what it feel like to not be an alien?

My dad told me joking stories about how I was an alien dropped on the front yard when I was really young, but oddly enough he wasn't far off. I spent most of my childhood feeling incomplete, incomprehensible, like a human face hiding some sort of monster behind. I had a distinct instinct that the way I had to live through childhood was to hide, to keep secrets, to create parapets of stone around me to keep the people out, and to more importantly keep me in.

I grew up and hiding grew harder as the monster grew bigger, and I couldn't renovate fast enough for it. It eventually broke out of its stone home, and I was exposed. The alien girl was visible for all to see. It created chaos and it took a long time before I could feel human. I grew friends and a sewn together personality and threw my feelings into my writing, my work.

But today, something new happened. It was unlike any mood I had ever felt. I wasn't me anymore. Or, at least the me I had grown to know. I was exhausted but awake, and productive but not nearly as enthusiastic, and okay with who I was but willing to work towards something 'better'. I always considered better as something very subjective, but somehow today normal things seemed more... normal. Having a schedule, changing myself for the better even if I'm happy, setting random short term goals to make my life feel more... I don't know. Meaningful I guess? My life felt meaningful before but in this new body that feels so "normal" or "average", its like I'm working to be normal.

Its terrifyingly soothing. Its like the normal-ness lulls you into into thinking a normal life is ok. And not saying being normal is wrong. But I've lived a life being abnormal, being an outlier, an outsider, an oddity. This lullaby feels so wrong.

I always told I've learned to appreciate my condition because I don't think I could handle being normal, having less intense emotions, not understanding emotion so well. Its sounds stupid, it sounds like its glorifying mental conditions, but its not. I know the suicidal thoughts aren't good, and I know mania is danger. But I cannot help like feeling like I'm losing me.

I cannot even get myself to sob right now, or to even truly feel a suicidal thought. They won't stick. Not even for a minute. None of it. I;m ******* terrified but I can't feel I can't make myself feel who am I?

I can't be normal. I can't.

This is more maddening then the moods. Maybe I was hitting too close to home when I hypothesized a person from Wonderland would feel utterly insane in real life. Or worse, feel even crazier when sanity began creeping up on them.

I don't want to lose Wonderland. I don't know what to do. I don't know who I am. Who is residing in this body right now, whoever is containing my thoughts, it cannot be me.

I cannot let all of my insanity go.

Normal doesn't feel better, and **** all the people who think its the only way to go. Normal isn't an aspiration, its a cage, and I will not be imprisoned.

Al I can do is find a way back to Wonderland losing all control. I guess that's what I truly wanted. Not sanity, but control. Controlled chaos had always been a favorite of mine, after all. There is always a method to the madness, and I must find mine, because I certainly cannot live without it.

Who knew Grace would have to remember how to be crazy?

I refuse to be normal. I refuse to be in-between. I will always belong to Wonderland, to madness, and **** whoever says that's not a proper life.

Its the life for me, so frankly, I don't give a ****.

I know our lives will never be easy. I knew that before I met you, when you were just an idea in my head of that man I might marry. When I met you I didn't even know it. I spoke to you like I had known you for years, was comfortable like that, but didn't see until a month later that hey, maybe we have something here.

We met because of cheap college ***, which of course you would think would be a letter of doom from the beginning. But somehow it worked. It hasn't been perfect, but it works.

Don't tell middle school me, but she was totally right about you. Hard to open up, daring, risky, cocky, goofy, had trouble with friends, and somehow still my best friend. Of course she didn't exactly picture it like this, but somehow she knew you. She knew you'd come, even before she knew we were broken.

Of course, she got a couple things wrong. You're not as tall, and you don't have blue eyes, and we haven't been best friends since childhood, but most importantly you never left me. I guess instead of having the pain of losing you and finding you again, I had to live my teenage years without you. I don't exactly know what I'd prefer, but I know I prefer anything with you.

I know the way I am doesn't make things easy. I know we have had our rocky times. But god have I been such an *******. More than just this past month. I got myself in this manic stupor where I was convinced after winter break that all the decisions were mine to make. When you called me a child, I didn't worry about you breaking up with me. I thought it impossible. It was like all I saw was my emotion, and totally ignored yours.

But last week, when you revealed to me that a breakup had crossed your mind, it shattered me. I was already feeling like such a ***** for all I had done to you that past month, but that moment I knew it had been much longer than that. I forgot that I wasn't the only important one. I forgot that all the decisions weren't mine. They were ours.

Dealing with my bipolar lately has made me selfish and blind. Granted, I needed to be selfish to live through what happened to me first semester,  but after that I was just being greedy. My grades improved, I had all the friends I could want, I had a future, and I had you.

I loved you loving me unconditionally, but its time to be fair. Its time for you to feel, to express, to live. This isn't all about me. Its about you, and us. It wasn't fair for me to do that to you for so long, and now I'm here to make it right, but ******* do I love you. Not in the loud way, but the quiet way that creeps up on you and holds your hands and kisses your forehead and suddenly you realize you're in love.

When I told you I loved you for the first time, I loved the person who made me stop being scared and put me first. I loved the person who was my friend, and made me feel special, and made me feel wanted.

I loved what you did for me, and now, as I finally see you, I just love you. I love all of you.

And as long as I can, I will love me loving you, just like you deserve.

You know, for years I wanted nothing but to be your little girl. I mean, I guess I am. But in some ways, you didn't let me. When I was really small, before life started to really take its toll on you, we did a lot together. I'd sit on your lap and watch you play video games, we'd watch movies together mommy said I shouldn't watch but we did it anyway, and I would crawl in your bed every time I was scared and you would make me feel all better.

So what happened?

Now you don't even look at me when I watch you play your games, and you fall asleep or leave before a movie is even over. And worst of all, sometimes now you're the thing I'm most afraid of.

I fought for years to be just like you. I read your books, watched your movies, played your games, all in a desperate attempt to get you to notice me. Funny thing now is that I'm extremely terrified of you seeing who I am. You'd hate me. You of course would promise you wouldn't, and in some capacity you're not lying. You will never stop loving your little girl, your first baby. But who I am now?

You wouldn't love her.

She believes in emotions, and equality, and being open-minded, and being *****, and falling in love, and loving what you do, and knowing when things aren't right for me. I know its so much harder for you, jaded by the life you have been given. I realize having  **** up writer for a daughter, an introvert for a wife, and a lost little boy for a son aren't easy. Not to mention your pressure at work and how you never say no and you always get ****** over by your coworkers, I get it.

But will you ever look at me and comfort me instead of telling me all I believe in, all I am is *******? Will you ever ask me what's wrong instead why I'm crying when I have nothing worthy of crying? Will you ever love me the way you used to?

I don't think so, and that kills me.

I love you so much, but I will be honest I don't love who you are that much anymore either. We have no understanding of each other, and I think at this point we might be too different to ever go back.

I miss you so much sometimes it rips me in two. My childhood was painful enough and I feel like I'm losing all of it. I'm losing you, and I don't know how and if I can fix that.

So much of me is based off you. I wanted to be you. And now I'm terrified of that happening, though my condition is a pretty good fail safe to prevent it.

I love you. I always will love you. But its time to accept I'm not Daddy's Girl anymore. I don't think I ever will be again.