Its interesting to be in a home so different than mine. A home where almost always two people at least are in the living room, bonding. My family I love, but we are always in our respective corners; father in the basement, brother in his room, mother in the living space, and I around randomly, uncertain where and who to belong with.

This weekend I visit Hockey House, the affectionate name I'm giving my boyfriend's home. I mean it full of affection, because they are brought together by movies and food and especially hockey.

In my home we are only brought together by food and then we run to the hills for our alone time. Very odd entirely, because of the extroversion holding my heart.

I guess as I grow, I find a disconnect with the family who is so different from me. My mother, though the easiest to be with, can be a staunch, stubborn hypocrite when it comes to all things social. My father is a determined conservative who opposes all I believe in. Brother is being molded into the man my father wants as his son, which is slowly distancing me from him.

When I'm home, I'm a repressed me, who keeps her tongue latched inside her mouth, and keeps her head down as to not get attacked. Even the natural peanut butter I asked for became a battlefield of who was right and who was wrong, not just a happy cheer for me being healthier.

Its odd in a house I've only been twice I can be less afraid than in my own home. I guess things change when you become the person you want to be instead of the adult your parents want to be proud of.

Maybe its easier here because I care less if they judge me, while my parents judgment terrifies me. Parents tend to be scary gods who rule your life, and to let them topple in your eyes is something all more traumatizing to watch.

I still love my parents, as children do, but there's a disconnect between who we are that cannot be passed.

Love can exist everywhere, but it  cannot transcend all obstacles, and that, truly, is what terrifies me most.

I never want to lose my parents, but I cannot lose myself either.

Only time will tell, and I guess I'll just enjoy college and my times at Hockey House.

Bipolar.

The toxic word flickers across the blue screen, taunting my tears into reckoning. Everything makes sense now. Now I know each time my feelings crash there is no reason, no problem, no answer. Just disorder. My disorder. It’s swirling in my veins, intoxicating me like a drug, and sometimes I like it.

Each manic moment is incomprehensible perfection, with I as the center of its universe. The world is mine to own, the Gods mine to control. Every movement is unstoppable, the energy seeping out of my very pores. Words come easily; all I am is a flowing expression of the beauty within. Nothing is above me, all are below. I am flawless. Why can’t everyone be so perfect?

Yet each depressed crash sends me spiraling into a darkness I have never known. My nails become bitten, my hair a tangled mess. Every turn I find myself nothing but alone, no one around to notice or care or even see. They are better, everything’s better, as long as it’s without me.

I am a cyclical monster, luring in my prey before dragging it into the pits of my own personal hell. Every shattered shard refracts inviting light, yet they cut deep and only capture people in a lethal web. I am breakable, unfixable. Every shade of me I thought I understood is now a vague gray. Is this smile mine? Are these tears real? Am I feeling pain or is it just the chemicals and synapses dancing haphazardly in my brain, concocting this uncontrollable body that I do not know?

I cannot hinder my blood from screaming for help, but my heart cannot tell what my lips refuse to speak. Lips lie when I try to hide, the habitual sin I can never break. People must be punished for their sins. Locked within my prison, kept without my food, begging to be unchained yet pleading to cement my sentence. A prisoner cannot **** when they are dead.

He asks to help, but he is ignorant to the truth. My arms pull him close while my heart shoves him far away, dooming my flicker of a fantastical romance before it begins. It shoves them all away. The choice is shove or break. No one deserves this, the swirling vortex of uncertainty, depression, mania, unknown. How could I break them too? The only paths before me are to lose them or hurt them. Losing them would **** me; hurting them would **** me. My heart will be murdered either way. How inevitable it is for me to be dead.

This disorder is not terminal, yet its killing me quietly, so slowly, and forcing me to feel alone in even the most crowded room. To become an alien in my own world. They want to save me, but they don’t understand, she doesn’t understand, I am too afraid to understand. It won’t be spoken. Only on paper can my iron heart ease, only alone can I say what I know is real.

Bipolar.

"Wait a year, they said, wait a year and things will get better. They think one single lapse of a human’s concept of collected time can change anything. A year she waited, she listened; she had to. But the year came, and the year then went, and nothing had changed. The girl was left with nothing. There was a hole, a chasm, never to be filled and never to be touched. There was nothing left and soon she could not find words, syllables, even sound."

A year ago, this is what I expected. Funny how a character I created much darker than I, actually reflected the shadows of my soul. I never realized she was me, the darker me, the hidden me, the me I was after I lost Him.

The depression is real. Its is apart of me. The swirling vortex I'm so afraid of I have to accept. But it doesn't mean I cannot smile. The turbulent tremors of my aching heart will forever be apart of me, but they do not control me. I control me.

Control. That is something I thought I lacked, but I realize it is my strength. Without my strength, the dark wonderlands of my heart would have taken me already, to a place that would be darker than imagined.

I didn't want the world to see me, because I didn't think they'd understand. And when it came to him, I was right. He didn't understand why I couldn't just **** it up and smile, why my outlook wasn't so positive, why I was looking at the world so darkly.

Its a dark world, darling, if he knew me, he'd know its actually optimism most days. But no, all he saw was the darkness and how I could not overcome it and it broke me from him, like a rock from a shore.

I felt like a rock with him, not a season, that is until I met more people who could understand, who could see my face behind these broken eyes. It murdered my never-ending love for him, because I could finally see I could do better, I could be happier.

Bipolar 2.

That's me, but it doesn't control me.

Not anymore.

Go to class, Grace.

Take your medication, Grace.

Learn to deal with your emotions, Grace.

Try to stay positive and it will all get better, Grace.

Why aren't you trying hard enough, Grace?

Why are you so quiet, Grace?

What's wrong, Grace?

I do everything. I call a psychiatrist, I take my medication, I try to hold myself together and be positive and strong and admirable. I do everything a little good girl should do. I don't listen to impulses, I stay quiet until I can't help but cry, I hold myself by threads until I can't hold on anymore.

Obviously I'm not trying hard enough. Obviously I'm being melodramatic. Obviously this is my fault.

*Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

There's a feeling I've felt hindering on the tip of my tongue, twirling with sawdust at the end of my bed. Its tingled my toes and tickled my nose and killed all hopes that this is just happiness.

Sleep is for figments and products of sanity, neither of which I can claim heritage. Well perhaps figments in the waking hours of the darkness, but that is a tale for another time.

I can feel his fingertips stroking my sides, reminding me what it is to feel human and vulnerable and perfect. Didn't know he boosted me ego and turned me into the self absorbed maniac you see before you today. Tyrant, remembrr? Oh wait, that's another tale altogether again.

I ramble in the night, in the morning, all the time. My thoughts wander with echoing clarity to encompass the truth about me; not everything is quite right. The teacups are lopsided at the unbirthday table tonight.

Yet again, speaking in riddles and stories unbeknownst to you. Stupid me, stupid Grace, stupider you. Why are you so open to my madness anyway? Maybe you're the crazy one.

This sick godlike embodiment I feel is one I forget isn't real, isn't me, isn't life. But wait. Its a part of me, so perhaps it is real as well? Call a jury, wake a judge, there must be a verdict on my elation. Am I a minor deity or are the synapses playing some cruel joke on my heartstrings?

Heartstrings, why did I bring them into this? I have shut them off for now, for they are dumb and deaf to honesty and logic and do whatever the hell they feel. Or is it whatever the heaven? I forget sometimes where the real misery is, or how the expression goes. I've never quite gotten everything right, being as upside down as I.

Insomnia brings out the manic in me, and I know its not real, but for a moment, just a moment, I belong. I am real, I am loved, I am powerful. Weak little Grace is no more, with her fears and contradictions. Just strength is left, and it is glorious.

Just remember not to let the heffelumps get you in the night, for they are the true evil behind your honey ***. Or am I a heffelump? I can't remember anymore.

This is going nowhere, everywhere, somewhere.

Wake me up inside before I destroy myself, or simply perpetuate my perfection with a caress of your hand. Whatever suits your fancy.

Call me Aphrodite and we'll call it a night after hours of mindblowing ***. But you expected that all along, of course you did, because you know my bones better than we both realize.

When you put your hands on me I feel ****. But yet again, right now I an perpetually **** and twitchy and awake and fake. Dare you to kiss me anyway.

Dare you to see me, psychotics and all.

Bet you'll run like the rest, yet like all good hiders its refreshing to be found every once in awhile.

Find me, and see. See the monster behind my beautiful eyes. That's the day when you'll see what true danger looks like; me.

Insomnia makes me odd, but yet again I'm always odd.

Little miss muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and craves, for a man betwixt her to tell her she's killer and make her a siren next day.

Forget, no, yes, its all I do. Its not how that goes, for sirens are certainly not temporary. I am certainly a black widow every day, not just each odd thursday.

Go to bed, Grace. I beg of you.

Close my eyes and say goodnight to the beloved moon, for the sun is nearly up and it certainly hates me, I am sure of it.

Just never forget all this is wrapped up in one little old me. No one seems to remember that until its far too late, so might as well run now, because otherwise little miss muffet here on her tuffet will be the death of you.

**** me.
Here I go again, meeting a blue eyed boy and tripping myself into a trap, catching feelings and getting infected more than I should. His tremendous fingertips tuck against mine, making mine tremble in a way I forgot they could. My fingers are dwarves against his, trying to hold onto something tangible, something real, as he breathes heavy air my way and I giggle, unable to handle the seriousness.
**** me.
Because this is serious. We laugh and poke and **** and joke but when I look into his eyes, I know. I know for once this is something far more serious than a fling, than dating, than any of it. He is my friend and we are standing here bare to each other and we are not turning away, not hiding unto ourselves, we are basking in the glory of each other's nakedness and loving it.  
**** me.
Each time he touches my side I feel a flutter and a yearning that I haven't felt so strong in a long time. He is touching me, and kissing me, and each moment I wait for the next touch, the next kiss, I go crazier and crazier. I crave his hands on mine, on my body, on all of me, and I can't handle it.
**** me.
Pull me down onto you and make me feel something I've never felt before. Make me forget all those other boys to the point only you exist and I exist and that's all that matters. Make me feel beautiful naked. Make me real. Make yourself unforgettable.
**** me.
I'm falling in love with him.
Hard.
****.
Me.

My kryptonite?

That's a good question. I'm no superhero, no, my limbs too fragile for any crime fighting, any dark lighting of the night, I can't be a Batgirl.

But everyone still has a kryptonite.

I jokingly tell people ice cream, or inappropriate musicals, or turtles, or writing. Writing is a good one. I will do a lot for the sake of the written word.

But that's not what truly gets to me, what breaks me down every time.

Change and love.

Changing love.

It begins as perfection, as bliss on a stick, like a Firecracker Popsicle, delicious until you get to the part you don't like, or, when you get to the end. All you have left is this disgusting flavor in your mouth or the taste of bark, and neither is pleasant.

Everything ends.

That's what kills me. That is my kryptonite. Endings.

In so many facets, this thing kills me. They are my favorite part of every story, but my least favorite part of my life. They are what I spend the most time constructing in a paper, but they are the thing I avoid the most in reality.

I have been taught, in my life, that everyone will leave. There's abandonment sewn into my heart that I'm not sure can ever be erased because, unfortunately for me, its always been true. Almost everyone has left me, and I can't help but assume the rest will leave too, until I am alone.

That's what I love about writing. When you write, there's characters, a new world, a new life. You're never alone, and you're never yourself. When you despise who you are so much, its a dream to try on a different coat and live another life, even if its for only a few minutes.

Another flaw of mine; getting off track. We began on kryptonite, and then I turned it into a tale about the wonders of writing. Typical Grace, distracted about words. Words, words, words, but are they real?

They're real to me, so I guess that's all that matters.

I guess it all circles back to my original kryptonite. Love.

I love too much and get hurt too easily. Its the struggle of my disorder and the folly of my far too large heart, far too large for my little body. Sometimes I wonder if my entire body is one larger, misshapen heart *****. I fully realize the heart is not where emotion comes from, but I'm certainly not all brain. Heart is the only ***** that makes sense.  so strong, so vital, but so breakable.

Maybe that's why they call it falling in love, because even Superman can't fly away from it.

Its kryptonite.

Before you, no one I had fallen for had ever really seen me naked.

No, not the literal way with the clothes off and the skin bare and the turn ons. More people than I'd like have seen me that way.

With you its like you see me, see deeper than my soft skin and deeper than my bones, you see right through me and break down the walls I've been carrying up for so long.

You've managed to see that I'm tied together with a smile, but with you I come undone. You see me, no guts, not glory, just plain, broken, unattractive me and somehow you find it beautiful. I know you do, but the fact that you do still astounds me.

After waking up so many mornings next to you, sometimes i wish it was the only way I could wake up anymore. Sometimes nights haunt me, and they torment me and torture me with the memories of my past and the shadows of my own darkness, but in the morning, its just you and me and I'm happy. I love how purely happy I am to glance over to your sleeping face and realize that maybe for once I did something right, maybe I chose right.

I'm falling in love with you, I hope you know. Each second the feeling compounds until sooner or later I won't be able to stop myself from saying I am in love. But for now, I'm content with falling. Most times it terrified me, it broke me down to tears, because I was fully aware the person I was falling for would not be there to catch me.

But with you? Oh you, I know you. You'd do anything to be at the bottom of that cliff, right where you belong, ready to catch me when I'm done.

You, the one who I never expected. You see me better than most people have in years. You are strong even when you don't fully believe it, and remain confident even when you feel insecure.

There is one promise I must make to you, unexpected one, and its this; I may falter and I may break down every once in a while, and you may feel like you always have to be strong for me, but I will always be there for you. I will always try to smile for you. I will do anything to make sure you stay the strong, confident person you are because I know that's who you want to be. I will try to keep you strong even when you feel at a loss. I will take down my walls and instead put them elsewhere to hold you up, and not quite protect you from the world, but make that strength of yours easier to bear. I will fight my disorder. I will for you.

Why?

Because you've seen me naked, and instead of wishing for the happy me or shunning the sad me or insisting the sadness isn't real, you held me and promised things would get better and promised I could be stronger than I think I am. And for that I will never falter.

Now that you've seen me imperfect, and now that I see you naked too, there is no going back.

And there is no way I would want to.

The malignant light blinds me into a drunken haze, intoxicating my toes until my body begins to dance, thoughtlessly

  Eyes closed, arms open, godly, peaceful, strong

Why doesn't everyone raise their arms to the grateful sky and soak in the golden bath of golden sun, to feel for once in their lives golden

Why do I seem alone in my gentle ****** curve while they seem bland and gray, straight lined lips across their face, a line of soldiers, unforgiving and unbreakable.

Why do I only feel joy?

  Thoughts shoot through me like tommy gun bullets through the streets of old Chicago, covered in hot blood, hot money, and hot nights. Drugs in my veins, matches in my pockets, all eyes on me and my mafia heart raising a pistol to my brain and conquering its control.

  Baby I like it, the way I move through the floor, seeing the monsters that weren’t there before, descending into maniacal darkness unknown, smiling while I’m screaming, never alone

  Sunshine, you are mine, my arms coddle you close, the sunshine endlessly streaming through my fingertips, a buzzing crescendo of ecstasy. You are all mine. This perfect heart contained in the cavity of this body overbeats, skipping steps, tumbling forward, 800 miles per hour, too fast to be caught by the blue-sheilded men who wish to stop it. Stop this heart and stop the world, for it is its red hot core.

  Pompous, conceited, it paints itself across my soul, yet I cannot contain what my emotions do, a little  twisted, a little crazy, a little unwell.

  And then I crash again.

My feelings on the world are a complex dichotomy. If I could control the world, my rule would be to control nothing. To give freedom and agency to everyone and let every culture and kind shine as they do and **** superiority and focus on growth, not *******.

But, not all people aren't as communally minded as that. And though in theory I could change the rules, I can't change people.

In its own way, that's beautiful. The visceral strength and resiliency of humanity fascinates me, with the chaotic undertones that lie beneath every eye. I love the spectrum of pain and brilliance it brings. But it also makes a utopian world of understanding and lack of control impossible to keep people safe; because never will there be a human race that doesn't at least have some people craving absolute control.

I think this dichotomy within myself parallels my standing with humanity very well. There is something on most every end I can find fascinating: free will, selflessness, unpredictability, tenacity. But also I can never seem to be pleased with how humanity could be but never amount to.

Not that it gives me much trouble. I've always kept humanity at an arm's length, choosing books and stories over the flesh-bags in front of my face. The only thing I ever struggled with was not being normal with my human relationships, and trying to make my methods match.

My methods won't match because I might as well be an alien for all I care about directly interacting with humanity.

Yet, I love humanity, in a way. I could write about human transcendence and growth until I die. I am madly in love with human potential. But I don't love humans. I don't love a species that muscle arms its way into dominance and can be arrogant and small-minded. After all we've managed to accomplish, and we're still start wars over skin color and scapegoating? Its laughable, in a way.

I suppose I look at humanity as if I was an alien scientist. I have no way of measuring things or conducting research because I'm foreign, but I can see the greatness in their eyes and am floored by it. Yet I also see the violence in their eyes and am repelled by it. The most tragic, push and pull love of my life has been for this species.

I've learned lately I'm okay with being alien. But its strange to find a foothold in a world where I feel constantly at odds and different.

But I like strange, so I think its what works best.

Between humanity and me, things are complicated. Things are wonderful and painful and all worth the while in its own, ****** way. I suppose all I have is my words and I'll share them, and humanity can listen if it will. I hope it will. I hope it can help people who feel like aliens too, and maybe then being an alien and a human can be easier.

But for those things, we'll just have to see.

I lay my head down on your empty lap,
And fall right through the air
My wings don’t sprout just like they should
All I see is red
Your name a faint memory in the spring wind
As autumn comes I’ve nearly forgotten,
but remembered well enough to have it stuck on my tongue
just on the tip, just enough to itch and scratch and bite and kick
just enough to be unforgettable

The light shines in the darkness,
The winter comes in spring,
My love dies in daylight,
My love dies not at all

An empty grave is calling invisible
Cat calling and begging to drag the forgotten into bed
But another hand pulls towards the heavens
A hand that isn’t even trying, isn’t even seeing, only just barely there
Just enough to be unforgettable

Tomorrow, tomorrow is a new day
But not for illusions,
Hades is crooning a siren song
But ears are filled with wax for my fair Penelope I must return
Even if she’s dead and gone and alive and well and doesn’t want me

Deeper than the ocean,
Farther than the sea,
On your boat you’ve moved on,
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Crying out my love’s name, the one that I’ve forgotten,
Begging for their sweet return,
Its just enough to be unforgettable.

So here we go again, tumbling down a rabbit hole, insistent on trying to find something curiouser and curiouser.

Life is an adventure, and fortunately, or not so much, mine is a constant trip to Wonderland, through the Jabberwocky's lair and the Queen of Hearts' castle and the winding paths to the mad tea party, my favorite place to go. We're all mad here, and I revel in  it.

When I started this journey through Wonderland, I was certain it would be a place I hated, ahbored, feared, vilified. The wonder ****** me in, but once I was aware of my surrounding I didn't like so much anymore.

But now Wonderland is home, where my heart sets its beats and my brain rests its heavy head, where I sing goodnight moon to the stars and sleep in the soft glow of their shine. I love it. I love me. There is no one that this Grace would rather be.

I compare myself to Alice, but I feel more like a sister now, one going through her experiences but feeling differently than she ever would. True, we're both polite and curious and blonde and sweet, but her eyes shine blue while mine glow green, showing her sadness and my envy, causing a utter travesty to Wonderland between the two of us.

I was the girl who turned into the Jabberwocky, and it makes much more sense for her to defeat me. To lead me out of the darkness and into the light, making me remember who I was and who I want to be.

Anyway, Alice is a visitor of Wonderland. Grace lives here, knows nothing but here. She may traverse the human world every once in awhile, but Wonderland is where she has grown, where she will always belong.

For once I see Alice as my friends, my family, those I love. They curiously visit my Wonderland, they see its sights and its horrors, and they only come to visit when there is a great party or a great fear. They do not live here. Only I, only Grace, live here.

Maybe I should be less afraid of bringing another young girl into this Wonderland, for who better to help traverse it than the one who owns it? And if the daughter I bring only is a visitor too, that;s just as fine. As long as the love we have for each other is a shining beacon that lights up Wonderland even in its darkest hours. For her, Wonderland will try its best to be what it was made to be; Wonderful.

And to thank all those who have helped, those who have changed and been curious enough to enter my land so different from their own, I have but one name for the daughter, given I have her.

I'll name her Alice.

You know what, this is not a love story this time. In this case, it never was. I thought it was, but I was mistaken and lied to by my lonely heart. And For once, I am standing my ground and telling you what you deserve to hear.

*******.

******* for making me so dependent on you that I was scared to stand up to you, even though you were cruel to everyone I loved. You may have thought you were cute, you may have thought it was your odd way of love, but it was honestly just an excuse to be an utter ***** to everyone and none of us should have tolerated it.

******* for competing with me. I am not a competitive person, but you'd laugh and comment how you were better, smarter, more mature. It drove me wild. Not only because your arrogance made me want to drive you into the ground, but also because it made me feel like I had to prove myself to you, brag in front of you, compete with you to feel worthy.

******* for turning on me at my weakest. Over a boy for god's sakes. I was your best friend, the one you turned to and confided in, and you started to completely disregard me over a boy I had feelings for first. You had no respect for our friendship in any facet, and it made me regret letting you in at all.

******* for always being at the back of my mind, for being so infuriatingly insidious that I have to always check up on you and worry about you even though you don't deserve it. For doing things that don't make me feel anything but pity and concern for your life, instead of being proud and maybe thinking I could accept you.

******* for making me want to **** myself. For being the selfish catalyst who showed me the cuts on her legs and made me feel so guilty that I didn't deserve life. Everyone deserves life, even the cruelest of people, and to purposefully make me feel that worthless, just to try to win me back, was the most heartless, selfish, thoughtless thing you could have ever done.

******* for being similar to me in any frivolous way, because now I am utterly terrified to be anything like you. Obsessive, rude, cruel, thoughtless, and selfish. I fear for my boyfriend, my friends, everyone around me because I know being your friend has given me the capacity to be just as ruthless as you. And I hate you for it.

******* for making me forget anything pleasurable about our relationship. All I can feel is a burning frustration when I hear your name, or an overwhelming sadness, or endless anger. None of it is pleasant.

******* for everything you've done to me, and **** the dark part of my heart that exists now because of your knives stabbing me in the back.

******* for still making me think about you, and ******* for any part of me that is like you.

I'm done with you. This is the end. Its ******* over.

And just remember.

*******.

I know this doesn't get me any promises of forgiveness, and I know how much things have been a mess lately and I refused to deal with it. But there are things I should have said instead of counter-arguing and berating you.

I've forgotten to tell you how I've been so excited to learn coding because I like to think it gets me a little closer to you, maybe even lets me understand you a bit more.

I've forgotten to tell you how though I have trouble sleeping having you beside me really comforts me, and though its beyond creepy I'll look at you to feel better.

I've forgotten to tell you how I love going to the movies with you, and hearing you get excited and involved in the story, and its like you forget all your school troubles for awhile, something I seem to have forgotten to do.

I've forgotten to tell you how I'm stupidly afraid to ask you to do things, like kiss you til we're dizzy, giggle til our cheeks hurt, or have really good *** (thought about that a lot today, but I was too much of a ******* to say something).

I've forgotten to tell you that you light up my day, and though I'm a moody ******* even just being around you helps. I know I don't act like it, but it does, so I need to get some ***** and just ask you on a date like a middle schooler and get that out of the way.

I've forgotten to tell you how I started a new novel, and that my mood diary has been going up lately in moods. That I was really hoping that at least my time with you next week won't be so bad.

I've forgotten to tell you that I want us to play mass effect, even if it means I'll swoon over Garrus half the time. I promise all my kisses are reserved by you.

I've forgotten to tell you how worried I've been for you, about your friends being more distant. I've been trying to just let you do whatever, at my own expense. Alone time is great (especially for these poems and homework and figuring out that new novel) but I should have been more open about it. Communication is key, especially for us, and I should have been more open about things.

I've forgotten to tell you how afraid I've been of being lost without you after next fall, but I just need to get my ***** in place and enjoy my time with you. Its silly to ruin time you have for some separation in the future.

I've forgotten to tell you that you look so **** sometimes, but I don't want to bother you because I know school worries you. And I know that goes with the bad communication stuff again, and I need to get my **** together, because I know you wouldn't mind a **** time or two.

I've forgotten to tell you that I really love horror movies, especially bad ones, and I really love Photoshop, and I really love tech at the moment, and I really love Diablo 3, and I really love spending time with you and yes I agree alone time is good and I shouldn't get angsty at bad times and make you think I never want you alone. I need to get my afraid bar to cool its rollers.(PS that's my new favorite phrase) You are my favorite person and I should and want to tell you everything. I need to get this together.

I've forgotten to tell you I've been trying to lose weight again, less because I hate myself and more because I want to look hotter for you, and have been eating less sweets and less food in general.

I've forgotten to tell you I want to learn to make paper cranes and watch gargoyles and be more in-tune with you. I'll watch Super Troopers, I'll even watch Master in Disguise, if you truly want to. I can't just say no to everything you want to do together. Why? Because if I always say no to together things, you'll start always doing them alone.

I've forgotten to tell you that your scruff is adorable and its kinda hot you're a little taller and your hair is beautiful. That I love goofiness and tickles and nose kisses and **** grabs and making you smile. I know I've messed things up but I want to all I can in my power to get it together, because you are special. You once told me you were like a shooting star and hard to catch and I rolled my eyes, but you are. I love you and have never met someone like you before.

I've forgotten to share my stories and my life and all the things that made you love me and even me love me, and I'm going to fix that. I will not sit by and let you forget me.

One last thing.

I've forgotten to tell you I love you oodles, and that will never change.

1.) I hate that you ruined my chance to be a kid. You stole my childhood and teenage years, you know? We all it isn't like the movies, but I never even got a chance to try. You made me scream so quietly that when I couldn't shush you anymore it became like thunderclap, deafening anyone close. I  pushed people so far away that they became islands to me, and I couldn't swim. That, or I wanted them to love me so badly that I squeezed them into oblivion and suffocated them with my demons.

2.) I hate that I felt unloved because of you. I could have been loved, you know? It wasn't like I was a *****. There were boys that wanted me, even ones I wanted too. But you made me this tumultuous fire that too many lovers saw only as a sultry, exciting spark until it completely engulfed them, burning them to a crisp. I spent my young love years unloved and assuming any flaw was a cause for expulsion, and any affection was a sign of destiny. They both were neither.

3.) I hate that you made me feel lonely. You kept me in a tower, and fed me just enough so I wouldn't die. You gave me this grand craft that, previously, I could barely use except to stare at blank computer screens and wished my fingers could pour out the things in my head. You gave me this gift that kept me breathing, but also kept me lonely. If I didn't know how to write so well to myself, maybe I would have screamed enough for somebody to listen.

4.) I hate that you stole my intelligence. I might be brilliant. I couldn't even think about that, was convinced it was a fluke that I was so smart when I was little. But now that you've sorted out yourself, I can feel it re-emerging and I feel so sick knowing how much better I could have been; what I could've done. The years wasted, only able to use that brilliance to keep myself from cutting my own cord.

5.) I hate that you make me a lot to handle. You make me bubble with thoughts and words and sometimes, a lot of times, it overwhelms people. I'm a tornado, a twister, in constant, energetic motion. Not many people can keep up with me, and it makes me lonely. You made me lonely because no one wanted to stay; that or they couldn't. Its hard when a new person all the time.

6.) I hate that you made me so strong. I've been on the brink of death, destruction, ruin, pain, and yet I've always come back. For the severity of the things in my head that storm themselves around, I'm an anomaly. I spend half of an intake therapy session having to go into gory details of my inner workings, because without a record its not as easy for them to see me. Yet I never fall, no matter how much sometimes I wish I would. Guess, just like you, its in my synapses.

7.) I hate that you've alienated me from my family. They are nothing like me, and they don't understand me. Very few of them try, even less sympathize. Many call it a phase. Like my entire existence the past couple years is just a new level of the teenage rebellion I never had. I now know what kind of people they are, what kind of people they are capable of being. Their jokes and energy aren't worth the words they inflict behind closed doors. No family should question me on everything. No family should call my life a phase. No family should think the person I love most isn't worth it because they haven't met him.  No family should ask me to hide who I am because its better that way. I don't regret walking away. I regret having to.

8.) I hate that you make my relationship harder. I feel things too hard, and I know that's my issue. But it being such a core part of my system makes it hard for me to integrate files. We're learning, and growing, like we always do. I can't help but smile at how he motions just like I do. He's the only one I've ever met who keeps up with me. Everyone else I've always left behind, one way or another. Though hard, you do make my relationship stronger.

9.) I hate that I love parts of you, because they're my best parts. I'm already smart, but you make creativity a shade of bold that I can't even comprehend. Its hard to share with my peers when they stare at me like I'm an odd anomaly. You make me an anomaly, but as a writer, a creator, an artist, its remarkable. I can write about people like no one else I know can. I can write about emotional experiences I've never felt, but you've helped me see. If I can feel a glimmer, of that emotion, I can understand depths I've never felt. You've made teachers think I was abused, beaten, and much more, even when I wasn't. But I could feel it. My devotion to my art makes that pain a worth and I hate that.

10.) What I hate the most, though, is that I don't hate you. You have made me who I am. I wouldn't quit you, even if I had the choice. You make everything harder, and you make me scream, and you make me work. But you also help me be brilliant, and help me be understanding, and help me shine. You help me love and grow and breathe, even when you're crushing my lungs. Its maddening and barely makes sense, but I know that much. I know that no matter how angry, upset, shameful, any negative emotion, that behind it, that's not my strongest feeling towards you. My strongest is that you are one of my favorite things about me. I hate that people can call me crazy because of you, but I accept it because I'm my happiest crazy. I'm my happiest with you.

Ring, ring, ring, ring.

Water's running down my face, no, tears, their salt is melting into my very bones as I stare at the phone and listen to it, ring, ring, ring...

My caterpillar has finally turned into the beautiful butterfly I believed I dreamed of, only to find myself rejecting him now at every turn. His Grace has grown up, and realized his riddles and rudeness are not the love I deserve, not the one I want, not anymore.

Wonderland has changed, too. It has expounded upon itself, growing larger with newer faces, faces I'm growing to love and cherish more than old.

In the whispering hours of Wonderland, a New Frabjous Face takes my hand and tell me to run with him, and I do. We run and dance and even when the rain is pouring he is still holding my hands and my face and telling me to run and breathe and live so beautifully.

My caterpillar never held my hand in the rain, he always disappeared into the clouds with his booming voice, judging and screaming about his own struggles while I was drowning in mine. Wonderland tends to flood.

Forecast for now though is sunlight with a slight overcast of whimsy.

After the New Frabjous Face, I feel more comfortable in the rain. Maybe it is apart of me, especially since I always beg to go dancing in the rain. Maybe I knew all along the rain was the key to Wonderland.

Caterpillar would be glad to hear I've been forgetting my magical little pills, no safety is swirling through my veins. He always judged me for using them, though he insisted it was my choice. My choice that he disapproved of.

New Frabjous Face and other new friends are new to me, but they makes me feel alive again, like maybe Wonderland can be a happy place again, like maybe the Jabberwocky can learn its place once more.

Ring, ring, ring...

And as the night goes on, I turn away the phone and let it ring, for it doesn't own my heart anymore.

I do.

The fire's burning and down, down we go, ashes, ashes, we all fall down. But its a fire I started. Its a fire I like. And not a bad fire, either. Fire always gets the worst reputation, of death, of violence, of an unhappy ending. My fire, though, its a figure entirely different.

Its passion, love, renewal. After all, nothing can grow until the old is gone.

A forest fire has been set upon Wonderland. Grace is anew, Grace is young again, Grace is beautiful. Not particularly in the traditional sense, but in her own sense, in her own light. There is love in her eyes, and its strange, because for once its not only for others.

The fire has swallowed up the Jabberwocky and the Queen of Hearts and all those demons that used to plague Grace, the demons of her past. The past does not define you. I once whispered tick, tock, and how the mouse went dead, but the mouse is not dead, simply grown unto a bird, flying and free.

Grace is still imperfect, her heart is not free of darkness, But she is growing and evolving as human beings do. Funny, its been a long time since she saw her body as a human one. Guess things change with time in Wonderland.

Maybe that's why the White Rabbit always is worried about time. Its a fickle, strange thing,s that runs then stops then screams and never dies, no matter how much you wish it to. Kind of like the Queen, but yet again the fire killed her so who knows what can happen in Wonderland.

Once again Wonderland is Wonderland, at peace and right and dark but always whimsical, always smiling, always Cheshire, even when it wants to frown.

Things are as they should be, with those I love beside me. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. At last she sees.

I love my name.

Well, my pseudo name.

The name I chose for myself, I am in love with it.

Not that I don't like my real name, that name is lovely. It lives in a palace with princes and stars ad magic, and I appreciate my mother for choosing it. It is magic, and I feel that fits me.

But my chosen name, my writing name, is a part of me too.

Grace Jordan.

It holds a pun and a dream and my heart all in one.

I always see myself as messy, clumsy, but not in the traditional senses. My mind is a mess and my actions are clumsy, sometimes even thoughtless. I am impulsive and too much of me for me to handle. I see myself as something far from grace.

Yet it is a dream. I would love to be poised and handled and stable and graceful. I want to live up to the name I have given myself, so in all honesty it is more of a hopeful promise than a pun, though I always write it off as one.

But I doubt I will ever attain that. Not being cynical, merely knowing myself. I love mess, I love spontaneity, I love the chaos that comes with living. I guess in a way I mean to find grace, find peace in the chaos, and be a stable mess. I know it all sounds like contradictions and complexities, but that's all I know, and all I will ever be. So I must work with that and make it my own.

Now the heart. Jordan was someone I lost long ago, and he holds my heart and always will. But I can still love, and I can still dance, and I know he would smile at that, so its all that matters. His happiness, and in turn, my happiness.

So self-centered, to write an entire piece about my name, right? Well maybe I am a little self-centered. Maybe I have actually learned to love myself a bit, and revel in my own glory. I love my writing self most, I think. And my writing self, in my heart, I will be.

Grace Jordan, reporting for life.

That's who I will be, secretly.

Lips as red as rose, skin as white as snow, body as still as stone. Yet this was not the fairy tales that I had been raised to believe in. This had no happily ever after.

    The heavy weight of the melancholy anguish fell awkwardly on my shoulders. I was barely old enough to even understand what sorrow was, let alone what to do when every person I had ever admired was now helplessly crumbled in the solid white room. Unthankful walls stared bleakly down at us, as they were numb to these feelings by now. It was a hospital, after all. They had seen their fair share of the dead.

    Something strong, pressuring, and overwhelming continued to force itself into my chest, burrowing itself deeper and deeper. Nothing had ever felt like that, as if it was eating me until I was nothing myself. When I glanced around to my family, I could see that it had them too. Consuming them in this helpless, dark pressure, the kind you only pretend to escape. Drying them of the good memories and replacing them with pain and despair. Squeezing them until tears fell from their eyes so much I had almost forgotten what they looked like without them.

    A voice beckoned me to the side of the bed. The smile that had filled my childhood was replaced with broken eyes and a grin that I knew was a lie. I wanted nothing more but to crawl into her arms and cry until everything stopped hurting so much, but I was too afraid. For in my mother’s eyes I saw she wanted more than anything to do the same.

     Dad’s arm came around me and held me tight, he needed it as well. It was terrifying, to be able to compare my parents to how I looked after a nightmare. They were kids again, frightened, and desperate, and alone. All they wanted was a hug and smile and someone to tell them it would be okay, that the terror was nothing but a dream. Sadly, we would never wake up this time.

     The nurse came around with a camera,  and I knew then that this was the last time we would see him. I glanced down at the perfect little face I realized I would miss for the rest of my life. With the pressure eating my heart, I said inside goodbye to the little boy I had dreamed to know. His body, small and teaming with untapped potential and dead life, was an image I would never be able to forget. Yet he never even got the chance to see his big sister’s face. Maybe it was better that way, never seeing what he lost as we saw him. Things were going to be different now, without him. Things would never be the same. A nurse started to count.

     And in a broken photograph, I smiled.

This is rude. I should stop using misnomers for my own devices, but I cannot help myself. So insomnia it shall be called, when I cannot find the words to sleep or the fervor to close my eyes.

That sounded all wrong on my lips, but my head could care less at this point.

The cool touch of my glasses on my nose wake me further. Way to go Grace, you're even more awake now. Like you ever needed it.

There's a jitterbug in my leg, sending me so sky-high.

Should I go to bed or continue pondering existence and words and dreams until my tongue goes numb from rolling all these R's: Rest, redeem, re-purpose, redo, remember. Always remember. Its hard to forget.

Days past and the insomnia persists. I have slept, perhaps, in that time, but yet I have not dreamed, and that is where my insomnia lies. Which lies do I mean, that is the real question, duality always tricks the eye.

Let's get these hearts beating faster, faster, to the beat of the music, while they touch each other's fingertips and kiss each other's lips and meet hips in a vain attempt to have it mean something more.

The words have left me, and I do not know where to end. So i propose another unbirthday be the day of reckoning, and maybe another poem, another day, my make more sense to me. Adieu my dears, and hope to pray to live just another day, for life is the most beautiful tragedy we can ever love.

**** me.
Looking back on that predeceasing story, I regret I was ever so blind. I let myself go crazy for a boy who didn't care, who cheated and left me bare in the wilderness, alone. I look back and now wish I had waited, had wished I had cursed myself for falling for another, but in some ways I don't.
**** me.
I was right to be scared of falling for him, because he didn't fall for me. And even then, I fell for a relationship, for falling in love, for the first time since I was too young to be afraid for it. I did not really love him, I loved the idea of falling in love, finally. He was not the right boy, and I not the right girl, but now I think things are different.
**** me.
Because I think I might have found my right boy, the one who I never expected. I had decided after the last to stay single, stay free, for awhile to catch my bearings, but instead I met him and began to catch feelings. I only dream that I might just be the right girl for him too.
**** me.
But don't. But do. My sexuality blossomed with change and being thrown into the fires of adulthood, but at the same time, this phrase's initial intentions do not apply anymore. I'm not angry at myself for falling, not anymore. I love this crazy boy and I accept it and even adore it.
**** me.
No, that's not what I want. I thought it was, but its not the right words. Love me, hold me, are ones much better. He not only deserves me happy but deserves me honest, and honestly I don't hate myself anymore for falling in love. I love it. Falling in love, for once, might be the best thing to happen to me. Love is my kryptonite, and finally romantics are involved in that equation.
**** me.
For ever thinking that love was something to be afraid of.
For being so stubborn.
For not opening up to the idea of  loving and being loved for so long.
For not accepting you.
But now, I open my eyes and I see.
You love me.

Mood stabilizers, they call them, but in some ways, they're more like painkillers for your heart. They numb the feelings so that you don't have the extreme moods you are accustomed to.

When you have a mood disorder, everything you feel is so much more intense, and so much more certainly snowballs out of control. That's most of the problem; the complete lack of control you have over your chaotic emotions.

But then you go to a doctor, and they give you happy little pills called stabilizers to do just as they're told to. Stabilize you. Normalize you.

Funny thing is, even with the little heart painkillers, you'll never be normal. Even if you keep up a fantastically ordinary facade, you will never be ordinary. You will always have those little pills in your pocket telling you that you are not good enough the way you are, that you must change.

Its a double-edged sword, these pills. Because some days you wonder why you can't just be you, why do you need these drugs in your veins, but then you remember the cuts on your arms and the painful nights where you drowned in your own tears and you remember why even you don't think the person you are is acceptable. Get better, Grace, be better, Grace. The words pound in your ears until you forget who you used to be and you are always striving to be something more, something better. You strive until it kills you.

You are stronger, you can beat it, they say.

What if I don't want to beat it, though, just want to have control of it? I never want to feel less than everything, I never want to feel so dull and numb that it kills me more than the pain ever did, I never want to beat myself, I simply want to be me but controllable.

Because right now I'm uncontrollable and that's terrifying.

Painkillers for your heart, numbing you until you can't feel anymore. But sometimes I wonder if I really want to feel numb.

Do I want to be me, or who everyone wants me to be?

One is safer than the other, but which one is really living?

Because all I want is to feel alive, but I don't know whether surviving will entail that.

Painkillers or killer pain.

That is my decision, one I'm not ready to make. Maybe tomorrow, when mania is not so close to my throat.

Maybe tomorrow, because I am far too afraid of today.

Every morning, the touch of her skin. Each feel of her fingertips awakens the senses, and I remember, for one second, that I am loved.

Its easy to forget when she's not around, and I harken back to that dark corner that holds me, holds me harder than she ever does. She knows little of it, only beckons my freedom for her nights and her pleasure and then disappears in the morning.

She seduces me with lasagna, did you know that? Promises the contents of her fridge and then leads me elsewhere, a place I know she's leading me, but I eat it anyway. She stares at me while I eat, always begging with her eyes to begin the dangerous tango that I can never ignore, and I pretend not to notice, but I do.

Then she asks me how it is and I say delicious, even when the meat is dry or the noodles are hard, its always delicious. Her lips look delicious, her skin look enticing, her curves and entrancing. Truly makes up for the questionable lasagna.


I know I love her. She knows I love her. But she doesn't care, and just plays with me at night and in the morning, makes some excuse of how she must go, ruffles my hair and says thanks for the good time, sport, like I am some child. But I'm not a child, I am a man who loves her.

Love doesn't seem to be enough for my Lasagna girl, and every Tuesday she proves it. The loves not enough, the *** isn't enough, I'm not enough. Just another pawn in her game.

Every Tuesday I come back though, and I always will, until the calls stop and her beauty stops and the world stops.

Maybe it'll never stop. Maybe I've found my soulmate over a plate of half-baked lasagna, but the funny thing is, she will never bother to find me.

Its not love.

Now don't think I'm crazy. I swear I'm not, at least not mostly. But its true, its not love, it can't be yet, its been one night and I'd be a true psychotic if I thought it was.

Once I thought one night was love, but I was also high off the fumes of my own cruelty and didn't know left from right and Up from Toy Story.

But it matters.

Not in the way you think, God, I swear not like that. I am not mentally able to catch feelings right now as I stumble through the vacant halls of my own sanity, or better put, the filled asylum of my own insanity.

Still, though.

It was a night I could be me, a night I want to feel again, where I'm bare and broken and real and **** and that doesn't happen very often for me. My mask of smiles and lies tend to hide everything, but not that night, and not with you.

Here in this new sect of Wonderland I can be me , be Grace, with little to no question. Well, there's been some rejection and tears and pain and all the average Wonderland shenanigans, but its been magical. I feel like Wonderland is a place I can live in again.

In old Wonderland, I was beginning to suffocate, to feel the cold hand of stability take over me. But I am not ready for that, I'm ready for freedom and dancing in the rain and having *** until the moon goes to bed.

I wasn't ready to be in love with the Caterpillar. Crazy, considering I always thought it was he who was unprepared, but all along it was me.

Guess I can't live my life wondering what's just around the river bend, I have to investigate. I have to know. Things must get curiouser and curiouser, its how it goes.

Let my youth wash over me, let my childlike Wonderland wash over my eyes and let me be me for awhile. Its not normal for me to be this malleable. Everything used to be lies, but now everything is freedom, and for now I love it.

Thank you for that night. Its a beginning, a new one, for Wonderland and I. Why?

Because for the first time in forever, Grace of Wonderland is free.

I haven't been here in awhile. This section of Wonderland is almost foreign to me, after all this time. I have teetered upon its edge for ages, but now I have finally fallen in, down the rabbit hole, and I do not know when I will be able to get out.

The dark parts of Wonderland,  where the Jabberwocky roams free, have terrify me and always will. The simple thought of that monster lurking in my head brings a slew of tears to my face, a torrential downpour of my own misery. I do not trust the Jabberwocky, for it brings ideas, hallow, dark ideas to the front of my brain and causes me to wander in the frozen desert or extract my blood from my own skin, and I do not know myself anymore.

Each word is shaky, I cannot feel it on the tip of my tongue, I am numb. No one here in New Wonderland understands the Jabberwocky; hell, only the White Rabbit and the Dormouse really understood it in Old Wonderland, and my heart still broke relentlessly, like tides on a beach.

Those not from Old have rejected the Jabberwocky side of me, and that terrifies me. What if everyone here fears the Jabberwocky? I understand that fear; no one expects sweet, innocent Grace to also be the monster screaming under their bed, but I need people. I need people who know and understand and accept that tough I can be broken and horrific and abhorrent and repulsive that Grace is still there underneath it all and she needs love. She needs it more than she'll ever admit.

Words. I have lost them. I haven't the faintest clue what's left to say, for the Jabberwocky is ruthless and hateful of my words, and I'm lucky to have gotten this far. In my dreams I am whole, in my imagination the Jabberwocky was gone, but I know now it has not left me.

It never will.

Everything in my body is weary, my bones don't feel like mine anymore, or real anymore, just simple slugs in my limbs begging me to move slowly and slime upon everything.

I'd rather hide in my sweater than face the world today, and I daren't try to hide my yawns and my sullen, sunken face, bare to the world that I am broken and sad today.

I want to be asleep, where I have a chance of waking up and this being gone. But I cannot do that, not yet, I must fight and live to die another day. How somber.

My hair is a frizzy mess and my makeup must be a disaster, I am sure. The lights dance just out of reach, out of touch, out of my way as i wander along the lonely dark path today has for me.

Tomorrow. I want tomorrow, where I can sleep and dream and beg for a life more than my own, to beg for some magic that will magic away these feelings of sorrow and unworthiness. I just want to be better.

At least my sweater keeps my cold heart warm.

Lucky.

Some people would look at this little life of Grace and think, ****, she is lucky. Of course, you know better, don't you, Wonderland? You know what goes on in my hodge-podge head where the rainbows lament and the killers dance.

So come and tell me what my kiss tastes like. I want to know if the poison is evident or I'm just the one who can feel it.

Skeletons twirl on my walls, and that's not a metaphor. I literally have neon skeletons dancing on my walls. That's just the type of person I am.

No where. That's where we're going right now, with wonderful gibberings of a lost cockatoo, so lost she found herself in a young woman's body.

Lost little Grace, trying to find her place in the world, just like her beloved Alice. Yet Alice was always free of Wonderland at the end of the night. Or was she? She did always gravitate towards the insane place, maybe she's just as trapped as Grace.

Musings of the world as I grow, from young little wide-eyed girl to the woman I am today. A young woman, albeit, a naive, wide-eyed woman with too much hope in her heart, but a woman nonetheless.

The scars of your love leave me breathless. Oh no, no they don't. I hope mine have left you dead.

Still bitter I am how my caterpillar betrayed me. Have I not told this story? How in the dark of the night he found solace in the wings of another, to leave me blind to his deception. Thank the gods the March Hare had the sense to enlighten me.

Now I spend my nights in the arms of other, and I could not be happier. Never one solid man, never one stationary enough to become a character of Wonderland. But there enough so the loneliness does not creep up on me in the waking hours of the moon.

Stars are my companions now, yes, that's what they are. I am always stargazing and sometimes, when I'm lucky, I share my pantomimed sleep with them, pantomimed for of course I do not sleep.

So perhaps I am lucky, for I am a Grace surrounded by stars, and at the moment, I would not have it any other way.

Winter seems to pull us together, doesn't it, love? Its as if the times things seem to want to pull us apart we get stronger.

Last winter, I gave you my heart, and you haven't left since. This year it seems my cautionary head, always so untrusting of itself and others, has decided of one certain thing: it wants to spend forever with you.

Its funny to me, how I never go all googlie-eyed as my high school friends always told me it would be. They would ooh and ah over some boy, and I'd always roll my eyes. I always thought such cooing was silly. Their bitter response was often that I didn't understand, and once I really loved someone I'd feel the same.

But now here I sit, more certain than anything that I love you more than anyone else. And you know what I'm doing? I'm not cooing, I'm not boasting of your infinite wonder. I'm not getting at all googlied-eyed.

I'm sitting here shaking my head, laughing to myself, as if to say "****."

****, I did not know it would be like this. That you would be like this. That there could be rhythm and method to an unpredictable, spontaneous, messy relationship. That I would feel more connected and in sync with you than I feel adoration or reverence. You're not some hunky guy in third period, you're basically just the best tumor I've ever gotten attached to my hip. A tumor that I'm better off keeping.You make me better. And I, you.

They were right, I don't understand. But not because I don't how to love, its because that's not how I love. I love in nose kisses and **** grabs, in steamy texts and playful jabs at your brilliance. And yes, by god, you are brilliant. But I don't worship you. I just wish to be able to fall asleep to your face and stand by your side.

And those googlie-eyes are in no way how you love either. You don't rub my feet and call me princess. You kiss me hard and tickle my neck, read my writing and break me down when I'm irrational. But you do love me, still. You love me in the way that you try to understand and not be so stubborn. You love me in the way that you sing to me when I'm moody. And my favorite way you love me is the hand across the table when I'm fighting the tears I never want to let fall down my face.

Love isn't just about adoration and attraction and compatibility. Yes, we are attracted to each other, admire each other, and are compatible enough. But I guess our best asset is how stubborn we are to keep on loving each other that gets us through. And I think that's my favorite way we love each other entirely.

Maybe love works different for other people, and I'm fine with that. But these winters just seem to show me that we're different. We both know we've always been different. You're the lonely genius and I'm the unstable creative. But I help make you less lonely, and you help make me more stable.

And now I find it hard to picture a day without you.


So winter distance may keep us apart, but I think I've learned by now its going to take a lot more than a little distance to tear us apart. Or maybe its just the stubborn in me saying so.

Regardless, I hope the stubborn in you thinks so too.

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.

There's some sort of magic between the eyes of a resting jaguar. Their languid yawn, opening the gaping maw that lies between their strong teeth, more energetic than their tired paws.

Still and regal, wearing muscles like fine silks, their fur like that final kingly cape and their ears their crown.

A zoo jaguar once met my eyes and in a deadlocked stare, saw the camera in my hands, and turned his head to pose. A prince always knows when to please his peasantry. As a pleased peasant, I snapped pictures and nearly cried at his serene posture behind a wall of glass. There was some sort of uncharted beauty in the way he spoke without words oversaturating his meanings. It was a way I wished to speak. He was a comrade behind glass, silent yet observant and knowing. Though my head might be a good fit for a maw, I nearly wanted to keep him close company.

The dark spots that adorn his body are the only betrayers of the fierce undertones of his monarchy. Well, except for the teeth, of course.

Though I try to unlock my gaze and detach from the gossamer threads that were beginning to tie, the jaguar eyes and jaguar prince incessantly seep into my brain, for when I close my eyes all I can see is theirs staring back at me. All I want is just one hand, a single touch, a gift to feel their crowns and robes, to experience the powerful royalty beneath their quiet eyes, even if being taken by their maw may end up being the price.

My affection becomes jarred by the human hand jostling my wrist, and I blink for the first time since seeing the posing feline prince. My head turns, trance averted, and I'm looked at with perplexion as my body has sidled up to the glass, and the Jaguar, now alert, is swinging its tail and staring in wonderment at me.

My eyes magnetize back to their rightful place, his green eyes on my green eyes, and I wonder what lives we would live like if I could see into his mind and know what's he's like. Perhaps we would be friends, or family, or hunters, or partners, in that other life.

Or, perhaps he'd want to eat me nonetheless.

One more camera shot of my jaguar prince, and a silent nod as he situates himself back to his pose. Restful, regal, serene. Turning away, I feel myself leave a part of me that always stays with him and taking that part of him that stays with me.

Every wild eye does, and our secret we will keep.

Here.

Here is where the mumblings stop and the singing begins, even if its off-pitch and bad toned, its beautiful and real and home. I can feel it in my bones, the resounding yes that this is where I belong. These people may not hold my soul, they may not be the closest to me, and I may not fall in love with them. But I love them still, and they are my family without blood, they are my green family, smiling beside me, trying to make a difference.

We all believe that the world could be a better place, and we all dare to dream that maybe, just maybe, we could make that difference. Its a magic I've never felt before, being silent in a room and just feeling intoxicated with comfort, like no eyes are watching and no words must fill the silence and no monsters are peeking over my shoulders.

The weight of the world is gone and I feel at peace, dipping my fingers in applesauce, being as me as humanly possible and for once not being judged and not having to explain and simply living.

Belonging in a silent room. I never knew it would come to this day, but it has. Its a day I've dreamed of, a day that has always touched the tip of my tongue but never quite been tasted, at least until now. And now it is here, bare before me, and I am reveling in its beauty. If I could draw, I would paint you a picture, if I could compose, I would write an Aria, but alas all I have is these silly little words to caress the eyes and sooth the soul and hopefully make a little difference someday.

Because that's all anyone really wants, right? To matter. To have it all matter, life, happiness, career, future, past, present, death. No one wants to go out like a light and have no one miss their warmth, everyone wants at least a shiver of something once they are gone, and to have everyone know they made something or someone better.

We're dreamers, my people and I, and I think that's what binds us; our endless capacity for hopes and dreams and combining the two to pray for a place better than the one we have today, not one worse tomorrow.

Tomorrow things may change, tomorrow I may not feel the same way as I do today, but today?

I belong is a silent room, and it is glorious.

Frosted lips met rusted leaves,
Surprising both parties at its rightness,
Between the freezing and the warm,
Between the snap and the crunch,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Hearts met in the mix of November,
A tossed salad of a month where both coexist,
They met with eyes of brown and blue,
And to their shock and everything else managed to meet too,
Between Autumn and Holly.

As the eons went by,
They muddled through ice ages, warm fronts,
Surviving only in the holy sanctuary of each others' arms,
And even when their battling storms came,
They came out with hands locked,
Gladiatorial victors of all things wicked their way come,
Possible love strung between them in the month of November,
Between Autumn and Holly.

The world grew below them,
and they did their work exactly as the atmosphere demands them,
They can nearly feel it in their bones when each meteorological tide must come,
It is the way their work happens,
And the way their world, our world turns,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Yet as humankind appeared and grew there was something stirring,
There were mechanisms and smoke clouds and an unbelievable flurry,
A heavy weight of some subversive demon latching itself lightly onto the lovers,
Then deeper,
But they refused to open their eyes; their earth and humanity won't either,
So the demon festered and grew to breathe noxious fire,
Eventually making the air too caustic in their ignorance,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Words could not be spoken after the inevitable occurred,
Autumn's world is near dead from a new, ferocious Holly storm,
A touch of the hand is all each heartbroken season wanted,
But they and the world stayed silent when everything's wrong,
And those fingertips and their vast love and brilliance created this hell,
A silence and death fell onto the possible love that possibly could have been forever,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Silence is their new normal,
Quid pro quo, in a way,
Holly's eyes scream her sorrow and guilt,
Her lips, on the other hand, say nothing,
Instead of their beloved, romantic November,
They now only meet for work,
The world becomes more chaotic and its weather distressed,
And the chasm between them grows larger with each atmospheric catastrophe,
The squalls screaming like their broken hearts,
All created by their ****** brilliant fingertips,
Between Autumn and Holly.

All they have left is staring down at their world and their humanity,
Hoping one day their November, their seasons, their world can be its own again,
It is too late for them to change the tides of the atmosphere,
But across the chasm they both somber and hope one day, some day, something can bridge the divide and:
Calm the atmospheric disaster,
Calm the storms,
Calm the world,
A maybe even fix the possible love that is left,
Between Autumn and Holly.

Being who I am I get obsessive. I get paranoid. I get utterly, shamefully, afraid. I lie. I lie a lot, even when I don't mean to or even when I don't realize it. The moods are like different people taking the reins, and they hardly acknowledge one another's actions. Happiness can do  thousand wonderful things that sadness will never remember. Mania will think a thousand thoughts stability can never fathom even pondering.

But I guess I'm getting off track. This isn't a movie about my head. Its a tale about my drugs, my loves, and my heart.

Its funny, trading drugs that stop you from suicide to drugs that stop your body from doing just that, but this time without your permission. At least let me say its ok before self-destructing, systems. Have some common decency before sinking the ship.

Even funnier, though, is now that my lungs stopped trying to **** me, my head totally decided it was time to take that title back for itself. Funniest has to be, though, is that my worst drugs aren't even the ones I pump into my bloodstream.

With the mood meds, I also stopped taking creativity and honesty and responsibility and ambition. Goodness has it been a messy den of deception I've been nesting in for the past month. This is the first time I've really written clearly what I've been thinking since I thought I was dying. Oh, sure, there was the one time I stopped breathing, but if I wasn't breathing I obviously thought I was still dying.

I guess its really today when I take a step outside my own vanity project and look at the mess I've made. I've done nothing, been nothing, but utter horror since I got out of that hospital. I've been a terrible girlfriend, student, daughter, and friend this entire time. I shut myself away, only exposing myself to those who I had to as to not raise suspicion. Hell, I've basically acted like a class act villain, hiding away in my lair plotting and thinking while ultimately accomplishing nothing. That's what villains do, right? Lonely, misunderstood, ultimately alone people who do not see the light the way the rest of society does ultimately never win, don't they?

I was someone, months ago. I had dreams, I had friends, I had a life. Now all I have is the shadows of my family and a boyfriend who I have done nothing to deserve this past month. But I guess the darkness has gobbled me up like a yummy cake and left me an ugly, unlikable crumb of my former self.

Time to **** it the **** up. Everything hurts, everything's broken, everything;s wrong. I don't have my drugs. I don't have the endless love I once had in my heart. I'm not the girl who once spent every day with her friends, called her mom three times a week, always excelled in class, and cried when she had to let it go.

Be honest with yourself, Grace. The true thing that's killing you is that you are empty. You do not care. You worry about your lies for the self-preservation tactic of not getting caught being the bad guy, but you are. You don't know if its a mental coping mechanism to deal with the torrential emotions or a survival tactic or for the sick selfishness of not wanting to feel anymore. You feign it, affection and love, but you can only muster it out in goofiness and weak "I love you"s.

Go back to your drugs, little girl. You're only strong with a security blanket. Otherwise you're a bitter ***** with a talent for lying. Get your mood stabilizers and your expressions and your friends and your hope back. Cynicism cannot keep them from you forever, unless it truly wants to **** you.

But that would ruin the lies of how fine you are, wouldn't it?

Make it ok, make your heart ok, and finally then it will be ok to lie just a little bit, maybe just to protect yourself from realizing this heartlessness, this period of nothing, was actually real. Go back to Wonderland, Grace. It missed you.

Maybe just as much as you missed it.

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock.

So this is the end.

This conundrum, this series I have created has been swirling on the tip of my tongue for months, and I have devoted my heart to it. Time is running out on this singular year, and everything will change in a moment. For now I will cherish the moment I'm in.

Bagels and cream cheese and coffee shops will be my home, I will splendor in them for as long as I can. I just cannot believe everything is changing. I was well aware it would change, said that it will change, but now that I am on the precipice I just want to take three steps back and tell Grace not to jump.

The one who I never expected is now gone for summer, and it broke my heart a little. The others are almost gone as well, and that breaks my heart a little. I will be back in the realm of the white rabbit and, though I miss him, one white rabbit does not account for seven unexpecteds

Down the rabbit hole I go again, to find another new wonderland. Grace is always changing, evolving, and this time I must do it without the aid of my friends. I will survive, likely, its just the loneliness that scares me. After months of being loneless, I just am not quite sure how loneliness will fit on me.

Just promise yourself to not go back to the dormouse and the queen of hearts, Grace. Promise you won't stoop that low. They have bottled and broken you, and you deserve better. You have better. Don't let their honey words and fake apologies change who you are.

So now its over. But it will be renewed, the time will come again for Grace to be in this neck of wonderland.

And for now I will be a survivor. A survivor of old wonderland, in hopes of getting back to new wonderland. I can almost touch it, taste it. It is only months away.

Then, I will be home again.

Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock.

For ****'s sake.

How did we end up here again?

The soothing, annoying word flickers on my blue-back lit screen and I am ****** back to the tumultuous moment when once upon a time it yelled bipolar.

And here we go again.

My thoughts flick, flit, floss between teeth made for biting and real meat. They need plaque, collection, to grow and accumulate mass to progress. But there my flicking thoughts go, flossing.

I've always struggled focusing, but I just got excitable, got manic, and it would solve everything. Mania was my monster, my red bull, and now that its sated and off to Wonderland...

I'm left here, face to face, with a twitchy white rabbit wondering why I would ever think to use my pretty little head when its such a good projectile into the sky.

I had always wondered, in those whispering nights, when my hands couldn't stop moving and my head wouldn't shut up, if something was wrong. But it was silly, I had two already, full of worry then full of poles. Couldn't be another, could it?

Of course, a Grace of Wonderland always knows best, and here we are. Another bottle to drink to keep me sane.

I wonder if my fingers will thank the capsules when I might stop biting them? Or my toes? Is this why my toes always twitch and dance, why they stand center-stage in so many of my mild fantasies? After all these years, the divas that my lower digits have become may not appreciate losing their star titles.

I just want to be fine. I want to figure out how to move beyond all the strange misfires in my head. How did I survive so long without a notice? Inflates my ego to know I should have been caught by now.

Guess just like the White Rabbit, despite my widgets and worries, no one can stop me from running when I'm madly, absolutely, refusing to be late.

Graces only knows to fight with fire and fists. Tis the state of my Wonderland, and perhaps now things will only get better.

He's sitting there, with that intense stare, forgetting about the world and daring to care. He's not prince charming, if anything he's Shrek, but the ogre stole my heart in the end. He's beautiful, I hope everyone can see, with his open brown eyes. He's a mess I must confess but what matters is inside.

When I fell in love with him, it wasn't a fairy tale. It was tears and laughter and lies and growth. Nothing kept me going except a solid maybe and an urging instinct to leap into his arms.

When I met him it was even worse, we were looking for benefits and nothing else. But instead we found each other and a possible forever. Who would have known a thief was in my midst? Who knew he could just be it? Not I. Even though before I was interested I felt comfortable and that our hearts just might share beats, I never imagined where he could take me.

Maybe years from now I will laugh at my young heart, but I pray I look back and smile and show our grandchildren this.

How daring am I in writing. I said that aloud in written form. I admitted it. Who have I become? Its crazy how crazy in love I am with him. He changed the romantically cynical and dead into a dreaming sap.

All because he was brave enough to steal my heart. He traversed Wonderland looking for a fabled girl named Grace, simply because I intrigued him, and found instead my heart. In a turn of events, he found it so precious that he decided to keep it. My heart turned an honest man into a thief, but I would have it no other way.

Well regardless, now I must speak straight to you, my ogre thief. I am madly mad over you and happy to be your partner in crime or your princess, whatever any given day suits us. I love you, and that's what matters to me.

So keep on looking off somewhere with that intense stare of concentration and determination, because that is the you I love most. Just you.

Five. Cinco.

Half of the ten and a fifth of the twenty five. Mathematics are a funny subject, don't you think? Some man just made up letters to correlate with numbers to transcend to concepts that in all reality could mean nothing and the square root of a orangutan could actually be yellow.

I contemplate on that a lot, being the Grace that I am, wondering if what's real is real, if words are just words, or all they the pygmy hippopotamuses flying in my dreams. Anything is possible. Dreams could be reality, and reality could be a dream. Or maybe there is no such thing as realness, and everything is just madness.

I learned a lot from my friend the Mad Hatter, how to love, how to be disappointed, how to fall into a pit of despair and how to wear a hat like a ****** deviant and love it.

But the most important thing I learned is that sanity is very subjective, because what may seem totally sane to me, completely within the norm, may seem like complex incongruity to someone else. Maybe we're all mad. Maybe no one's mad. Maybe its just you, maybe its not you.

Special. That's another word that always got me, but I prefer to think in the realms that everyone is different. The world is in different shades and hues, none are ever quite the same, so why should people be that way?

But maybe yet again I'm only speaking in riddles and soliloquies and monologues and standing over all my conquests I am screaming my thoughts while they utter not a word, fearful of manic me.

I'd be afraid of manic me. She is quite the finger-twitching tyrant.

Words are words but are they real? Are they what you mean or are they just lies, lies, words that you scream until she dies, dies, and the world is at peace.

Oh, that's not right.

I once wrote a short poem similar to that I could recite by heart, but as my heart has changed the words become jumbled. Death creeps its way into lies, and heavy juxtaposition ***** with my meanings. Eating my words, until I am not a girl anymore, I am a leaf, or a bat, stuck in Wonderland until the end of my days.

Funny how Alice the savior became Alice the bat.

Wait, I'm not Alice, I'm Grace.

Oh, I do not know who I am anymore. And that is the tragic beauty of Wonderland. You just never know what, or who, tomorrow may bring.

I started high school with grand intentions of grand friends and grand grades and boys would only be a street-side fruit stand to glance at while I cruised on by.

Intentions never quite work the way you plan.

My first class of the day, a boy with striking blue eyes, an awkward gaunt, and floppy hair sat down next to me and started talking about Pokemon. He had seen my Pokeball pin on my backpack and had singled me out as the person to vilify him the least. I was uncomfortable and unsure, horrified by his brashness. The seat had been meant for my best friend, Cathy.

But the second his mouth opened the teen awkwardness faded from his face and he become bright exuberance. Stunned and flustered, I stared as he passionately smiled and seemed to revel in our one-sided conversation.

This happened for weeks and I eventually became comfortable enough to talk back. His smile widened as he seemed pleased to find another person who was willing to be a little weird. I didn't know nearly as much as him, but I learned because I loved to watch him beam.

Right before the homecoming dance, he asked me out with a poster that said, "I choose you! Do you want to choose me too?" I blushed and said yes, and we coordinated red for our first dance as high school freshmen.

At the dance, though, my blue eyed beamer was someone anew. He was dorky and the way he danced was flamboyant but terrifying. He often ditched me for his marching band friends, and I felt more humiliated and uncomfortable around him than the bright admiration I had felt before.

When he took me home that night, he tried to kiss me and at the last second I ducked away and gave him a hug before running inside. Those lips weren't nearly as enticing anymore when they weren't beaming at me.

The next week in class, he sat next to a different person. A guy from his science class, I heard from my friends. I shrugged and went on doodling on my notebook. At least I learned now what a Gardevoir was.

There we were, back to square one. Guess it takes more than a semi-mutual interest and a beautiful smile to maintain a relationship. And there I was, back to grand intentions and great expectations, but this time I knew things won't ever go quite exactly as you plan.

He ended up dating Cathy later, and he and I are close friends now. He's actually pretty fun when he bothers pays attention.

But this was the end of our love story.

My little blue dress hangs in my closet now, and my black ribbon is around my wrist and not my hair. I've cut my long blonde hair shorter, and my childhood fantasies are a mere haunting that reach to me at night, reminding me of who I am.

I once dreamt of you as a wonderland, a place of fear and magic and horror that I would suffer a thousand lives to feel a moment of.

Then I grew older, and recognized that this wasn't a wonderland; or perhaps, it was, but not quite the wonderland I was thinking of. This wonderland had a name, a name that came with frightening connotations.

Bipolar.

Those fantastical moments in which I was flying, in which nothing but the flowers could sing with me as I danced in a purple field of wonder. Where the bluebells kissed my hands and the crochet was with hedgehogs and the pond behind my house was much more than it seemed.

Bipolar.

Each corner I turned in which a shadow hid behind, shadows I could only see and that chased me through the darkness unto the stairs and into my bed, holding me tight and strangling me until I woke up and realized everything was ok.

Bipolar.

Each friend I made as a child at night that wasn't tangible, though we shook hands and danced and read books together as if we were real. As if anything was real.

Bipolar.

It was a game I was playing that I didn't know was hardwired into my brain, that this wasn't just Grace and her wonderland, it was something darker, deeper. But alas, that's how it is as you age, isn't it?


Wonderland gets darker with each visit, and with each day it grows closer to me. Its terrifying how it may begin to affect others, others i love, but there's not much I can do, is there?

My one wish is that there will not be another blonde little girl, with my green eyes and my blue dress, finding herself stumbling into a wonderland that she cannot handle.

If it means I can never have the one thing I want more than anything, then I am willing to sacrifice everything to protect that little girl.

I will never lead another little girl into wonderland.

Never.

Grace has made it through Wonderland, and has seemed to find peace with it for the time being, so where does she go from here? This would be easy if like in books things just ended, closed up in a neat little bow at the end of the story and there is resolution.

But there is no resolution here. Just a desperate craving for meaning again.

I guess since my Wonderland is stable, the only thing left wrong is me.

Not to say that the baubles and do-dads in my head are still broken, no, Wonderland is at peace, remember? Must get you checked for that memory of yours, good sir.

Regardless, my ducks are trying to row and I must follow their orders as to not rock the boat. Nonetheless, though, who is Grace? I've been working so hard to keep the Jabberwockys at bay and stop the wars from coming and protect the heads from rolling, that it's like some part of me is missing. I feel like a hodge-podge, a hedgehog, speeding around and around in lost wonder trying to find something but never quite sure what.

Is writing truly the only distinctive, certain characteristic I have, with no contradictions and carpenters and changes? Is it the only solid footing I have on the edge of tomorrow? Am I not much else, with as much substance as a sellophone?

Everything seems to cancel, make me some sort of odd creation of jumbled things that don't seem like they would fit right at all, but enough glue was pumped into me that practically anything seems to stick.

I'm covered in glitter and polish, getting thicker each day, making me someone new with each passing coat. I'm not gaining weight, so is my inner soul just melting away?

Can a person just become polish? A person who creates themselves instead of something made, genuine, and real? Am I even Grace anymore, should I adopt a new name as if to show the difference that has taken a hold of me since my name was born years ago? Will I reach the point that when someone wants to know me and starts to chip the paint away, that by the end there is nothing behind the color at all? Will I become nothing but choices and farces to the point they are me?

I have no clue how to get back. Can I? The paths behind are gone, the bread I've been crumbling to save my path was gone years ago, as the Chesire Cat promised I'd find my way if I had nowhere to go. But guess now I have no way and have somewhere to go, and he's not to be found. Typical.

Do I want to get back? Am I too attached to my polish now?

My polish was layered to make others happy, so who am I without others, without the affections and pleasing of others? I don't know. That's terrifying. I can't do alone, and I have led myself here more and more with each passing day. I don't think I can be alone ever again, or the Jabberwocky will certainly **** me. I wish it was a maybe, but for once I can't even rely on those.

Guess I better keep on layering the polish and glitter, trying to find a semblance of who I once was. Maybe a mix of now and who I am? Possibly that could work.

Now only if I knew who I was at all.

That would make choosing polishing colors much easier.

Dear Person I Despise Most,

God, I am on the brink of the best year of my life. I have just finished my first novel, and I actually think I might try to publish it. I have a gorgeous, ****, wonderful boyfriend of almost a year who deserves every bit of my love. I have great friends who don't expect me to be anyone but myself, and don't judge me when I get a little crazy. I am going to be in writing classes learning new skills that may not always help me write better stories, but make me more creative and bold and strong. I am starting my second year in a place that has made me such a better person, and I love all of it.

And on the eve of all that glory, I relapse.

Not those **** Jabberwocky thoughts, not even the little cuts that keep them away. But you. ******* you.

I don't know what I thought I'd expect when I told myself I'd just "check on you for a second". I should have known better. I should have known some sick part of me loves being angry and upset and hate you for thinking such stupid things all the time. For being so pretentious and entitled and sickening.

I was annoyed enough when I read your obnoxious posts about how gorgeous and hot and wonderful your boyfriend was. You guys break up every three minutes and still you fawn over him like a god.

But I digress.

I thought it was harmless. That nothing would come of it. That this would just be a little bit and probably the last time and no big deal.

Then you said it. You said you spent a year keeping someone alive.

If its me, then *******. You may have helped, but you did not ******* keep me alive. If I wanted to truly die, it would have happened. You are not the lone holy spirit that kept me afloat in my time of need. And in all honesty, halfway through you turned head and ****** me over, so please, kindly, shut your face.

And even if its not. What gives you that right to say you were keeping this person alive? If you truly were the only person they had, and they were in that much danger, go get them help. Tell people. Call the police or something. Don't just sit there and hold their hand so you can one day hold it over them that you 'kept them living' . That's ******* and manipulative and no one deserves that. And if they weren't that bad, if they had other people, don't take the credit like you are some righteous savior. Some pure soul who did nothing wrong. I spent a hell of a lot of time with you, and you are no angel, dear.

Funny thing is though, I keep on trying to get away from this. And I even keep on trying to protect you. I block you on things so you don't have to see this. So you don't have to see my stupid anger and hate because though you are no picnic and you were a manipulative ***** to me, it doesn't mean you deserve you to feel bad about my bad choices of seeking you out to look up. I'm also to blame in this, I looked for you again. But don't blame me if you searched this out when I made precautions to try that you wouldn't see this.

You know, I think the reason I still search you out is so that I can see if you're better and if you're not, to make myself promises to never be anything like you. Anger tends to fuel me a lot. I mean, my hatred for how people see love stories and suicides and depression got me to write my novel, which I adore. And your repetitive pretentious writing always did make me fight to write better, because though your type of writing was like candy to teens, I wanted mine to be the vegetables. ******* lame metaphor, but I am hyped up and its late at night, sue me. Regardless, I wanted to be the story people needed to read, that really made them think and grow, instead of what placated them as an easy read. Who knows, maybe if you could finish a story you could be a more popular novel. But I don't want to be popular, I want to matter. I want to make a difference. I don't want a quick buck, I don't want my writing to turn into some stupid marketing ploy to get me rich. I want to be classic. I may be shooting for ******* Pluto and I may not get what I want but at least I gave it one hell of a shot.

I do in a way want you to get better, to do something with your life and not be a mess. I'm happy you're trying. Maybe something will work out.

But I never want to be like you. And that has to be another reason I look, to fuel me and make sure I never sound like you, or think like you, because I know you are not who I want to be. I could never live with myself if I was pretentious and "tragically beautiful'. I'm just a regular person, with a few irregularities about her. I'm not some kind of epic heroine trying to write a tragically beautiful story for myself. I just want to live a nice life with people I love. My characters can live the beauty and/or tragedies that pull at heartstrings.

I'll never not be different, but I'm not letting that define me. Once, you got mad at me for letting my mental illness define me. Maybe it did then, but its certainly now true now. I'm not a crazy girl, I'm just a girl who happens to be a little crazy.

Make sure to take your own advice next time, and maybe next time I stupidly relapse I'll be a little bit proud, under all the annoyance.

I'm not meaning my opinion should matter in your life, though. And honestly yours shouldn't matter in mine. I'm slowly getting towards that. Maybe eventually we'll both get over this. Maybe you already are. I dunno. I don't talk to you. I sure as hell never will again. But for now, see you til next relapse.

Sincerely,

That Friend You Had Once A Long Time Ago

Its been a journey, Wonderland.

We have made it through this transitional time in which my tears lingered in my tear ducts, tentatively prepared for a turbulent tragedy. Often I did cry. For a long time I cried. But I don't cry as much anymore. I smile more, laugh more, love more. And I would have it no other way.

All my old Wonderland characters are gone. I have truly changed scenery,  gone to a place I have never known before, where my old friends can rarely follow. Except the white rabbit, of course, but I always knew, behind the fears, that I'd never lose him.

Now I am with my new friends, stronger friends, older friends, all led in a march by the one I never expected, who holds my heart more than any person ever has before.

I am content, Wonderland. I am content with you, with my life, even very content with this simple room I now sit in, typing away. Its all very pleasant. Imperfect, but pleasant.

For the first time in a long time, I believe I have found my place. I have found home, as I expressed awhile ago, I have found a place to be bare and true and me with my words and my letters and my nonsensicals.

This life is a Wonderland, and I live every day in affectionate wonder.

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream.

But I also walked with you, and you, and you.

After losing my caterpillar, after sending him away, my dreams are a jumbled mess of maybes, from one boy to another, my mind swimming haphazardly in all the possibilities that I have no clue who I am falling for or who is most on my mind.

I just want to be close to people. I want to love people, and I want to be kissed, and I want to dance in the rain.

I don't even know if i want it to be real, or just one person, i just want to dream and want someones to hold my hand and make me feel like I belong.

You and Me and all other people and I can't keep my eyes off of you.

Make me feel that, someone, anyone.

Bueller?

Give it time, things will fall into place, like leaves onto water, stumbling through the air until they reach the place where they belong, calm and kinetic all at once.

Until things fall, until I land, I will fall and dance with all the people I love, holding so many hands and seeing where my dreams take me. Until I find You, until I find the one who makes me stop looking, I will never stop dancing. I will become the most vibrant, exciting, lovable me.

For you only.

When I was young,  school was my place. As an awkward oddity I found solace in words and reading.

Wasn't long 'til I was being called brilliant. Those days were some of the few times in my childhood life I felt strong and confident and worth something.

I was sent to an advanced school. I ate books like candy. I had a passion for knowledge and wisdom.

So what happened?

As my head got cloudier, I fell more and more behind. Well, behind for me. I was still an AP kid, so nerdy and there. But I was also quiet and, for AP, pretty average.

I stopped excelling in sciences and math as much as I used to. Everything got so much blurrier around then. As my head got more and more uncontrollable, the less brilliant I became. And the more I hated myself for it.

I could barely take time to feel everything but the raging inferno of emotions that was slowly taking over my life. I had learned to lie too well about it, so well that it was nearly my entire being by the time I finally got to stopping it.

For years I had to accept going from brilliant to average, and I accepted it as just my place. That I excelled in youth but dropped off and being good at writing would be my last, final brilliancy.

Then, nearly a decade after things began to go nuclear,  my head began to cool.

I sometimes fear how clear everything feels, how the touch of my fingertips on my keyboard still feel beautiful but in a less insatiable way. How the sky is blue and everything makes sense and how my mind craves to know more and more.

I am excelling. I am standing in front of classes that I am clearly not as qualified for and doing well. And, by god, the whole beauty of it is that doing well does not correlate to this buzzing going on in the back of my head as if its about to explode. I just feel it. This energy coursing through me that loves to know and remember and learn and do everything in my power to make everything I do wonderful. Its like magic but I know its not, its me. I didn't know "me" could be brilliant anymore. I was nearly certain "me" couldn't. I was a writer, and I was content.

But now there's this thing inside me I haven't felt in years, that has two wide eyes and wants to feel the world. Its curious and strong. I didn't think I was that strong either. I thought I just knew emotions and pretty words.

I sit here, though, and I am brilliant. It feels so arrogant and cocky to say, but I'm me again. I'm the little girl who got lost in the fire, but I thought she burned and died.

Yet as my head finally cools and the ashes fall, she reemerges and she's like some unbelievable phoenix inside my soul.

I thought I had to accept I could never be anything like the brilliant little girl that got swallowed by a monster inside of her. That I had to accept losses like I accepted losing everything I loved in my life for 18 years.

But I don't have to lose everything. I don't have to assume all that is lost is gone.

I am reading, and I am learning, and I am growing. There is this new growth in the old, weathered forests of my consciousness. It didn't have to resign to its ways, it can be anything. I can be anything.

Because finally, after years of forgetting, I am brilliant.

I don't want to.

I look in your eyes and I smile and I know for a certain fact I don't want to.

Every time I have I have lost it, I have ruined it. I have never once not ruined something.

And I know with all my heart I do not want to ruin you.

I've been a heartbreaker all my life, no clue how, no clue why, because I'm not that funny, I'm not that pretty, I'm not that anything, I'm just kind. I'm kind and I **** people in until I then destroy all their hopes with my moods and my temperaments and my ever-changing mind.

I don't want my mind to change about you.

One night, I felt it. I felt my ever scornful heart turning from you and it broke me. I cried and cried fearful that I would lose you over one little shift, one little imperfection. I don't want it. I don't want any of it.

I just want you.

I want to change for you, to stop shifting, to stop turning, to stop it all. I want to stick with this until my heart breaks for once, because we both deserve that.

I don't want to already be starting to turn away.

I don't want to go despite everything you say.

I want to be by your side for as long as I can manage it, because you are worth it. Because you fight for me, even when I see in your eyes it kills you. Because you hold me and smile at me and talk with me and care about me, even if its in your own quirky way.

I want to do this, for you, for the one I never expected.

I will break my own heart for you.

This was written three years ago for a school project*

In the glass lies a familiar stranger. I can see in her eyes I understand her, but on the outside she is someone I barely recognize. I’m not sure if I like her, with all her sharp angles and endless shades of color refracted. We stare at each other, she smirks at me, and I scowl at her, uncertain how to continue, afraid of what to do. We are strangers strung together by a common understanding, one we cannot ignore. Yet we don’t know how to approach one another. Polite courtesy, companionship, hatred? I don’t know with her. Within the reflection, I see every side of her, every flawed, shattered inch, the past that she pretends doesn’t exist, everything she's desperate to hide. Her reflected figure shows her as an invincible diamond, but inside she's just breakable glass.  

In a moment, the lights shift, the glass changing to force me to remember her. Her past unfolds before my eyes, and I am transfixed in memoriam.

She is only four years old, bright eyed, heartbroken, and forever changed, having to grow up too fast and having to pretend too often that she was ok. On her face lingers an angelic, adorable smile, yet my heart knows its not real. It doesn’t take long for a broken child to realize if she smiled it made everyone else feel better. Her arms cling to a velvet, violet teddy bear, thin from being hugged too tight, a photograph in her hand, crumpled from being hidden all too often. the image of a boy lies in it, only an infant, an image innocent but yet so obviously not. His lips are stained with red, his skin stained with white, and her cheeks stained with tears. The pain wells within my own heart, feeling her pain as she giggles, red-eyed, becoming joy epitomized to make her family smile again. She got so good at playing pretend.

Then the image changes, and she is now seven, hair cropped in a humiliating bowl shape, ready to go to school, ready to be someone, ready to live by that smile. Her feet turn in and the butterfly pins in her hair are happily quirky, distraction from what lies within her eyes; within my heart. A pile of photos reside in her pocket, only peeking out slightly to show the truth. The young boy, an elderly man, a sickly woman, the faces peer up at her, refusing to let her forget. And the bags under her eyes tell a tale all their own. With all the pain came the long nights, nights of nightmares that scared her awake, crying. No one seems to notice that though; the hall surrounding her is covered in photos of a young, chubby cheeked boy, so little and so young. In every shot they idolized him,  treated him like a miracle. I may know the difference between favoritism and the zealous gush over a baby, yet she doesn’t. She’s only a girl. At seven, the pain and nightmares weren’t what she minded most, what left a downcurve on the side of her grin. That came from wanting to be a miracle too.

Time seems to race by in seconds, and that tiny little girl is now ten. So much has changed. Her hair has grown and so has her smile; yet distinguishing its validity is impossible. Her legs are crossed, calmly,  contrast to her storming eyes. Around her are students, staring at a teacher as she reads a student’s fantastic work. The girl beams, but refuses to look down at her own rejected paper in her hands. An A+ is marked on the top. Yet everyone is transfixed as the other student’s writing is written aload. There are calluses covering her fingers and pencil marks staining the long, left sleeve of her shirt. I see inside this kills her. Every so often she gives an encouraging smile to the jovial girl next to her, with no paper in her hand.My eyes widen. This friend of hers is the one whose story is being read aloud. Her taller friend is better, and it kills her inside, being close yet still not being good enough.

The picture doesn’t stay, it soon shifts. A lot changed once she is thirteen. The familial grin covers her face, yet she doesn’t seem to be smiling at herself, merely at the other person in the glass. A blonde girl is next to her, her arm around her, the two speaking without words. Yet both girls are looking at each other, and not at themselves, as if ashamed. Not long after the other girl waves goodbye and the young girl is left all alone. For once her smile truly falters, staring at what’s left; her. An insecure hand crosses over her chubby stomach, acknowledging her shapeless sides. Her arms cross self-consciously over her and she shakes her head, as if to tell herself to stop all the hate. Eyes closed, she’s smiling again, but by now I know she’s lying. I almost want to clutch her close, to hold her tight, to tell her that she’s going to be ok. That she’s not disgusting as she thinks her reflection shows. Yet, stuck outside the glass, I can do nothing. That poor young girl, she only knows how to feel pretty when she can’t see her own face in the mirror.

Darkness hits as the glass reveals the girl at fifteen. She is sitting on the floor, skinnier than before, prettier than before, but with tears falling down her face. No smile hides the pain inside. She is alone, surrounded by bleak darkness and subtle cracks throughout. The only thing alive in this godforsaken reflection is her. The photos once more are peeking out of her pocket, the past ones still there while new ones have joined their ranks; the kind face of a diminutive woman, an elderly woman paired with the previous man, a young girl with strawberry blonde hair, and the insecure girl once holding the girl up with a friendly smile. The picture is torn clean in half, with rage and anger burned into its colors. She looks at it often, sobbing more with each guilty glance. My eyes scan her, terrified and pain stricken. Eyesight, fickle and slow, finally homes in on the crook of her right elbow, with small, almost invisible cuts covering it, cuts almost hidden by her sweatshirt. My head hurts, my hands begin to bang on the glass. She hold her hands to her head, rocking ever so slightly back and forth, as if a monster is consuming her mind. I pound harder, desperate to try to help her, she’s so lost. She feels guilty, so guilty. For nothing, everything, its all her fault. Why is she such poison? No one stays. Her eyes fall on her photos and her eyes grow dark. No, no one ever stays. In the end she is always alone. The tears fall faster as her knuckles grow white, trying to use force to drive the poison out. She poisons everyone who cares; she murders them. Shadows move around her in a taunting dance. In her eyes insanity screams. the shadows dance faster and faster, spinning out of control. She's not poison, she's not a monster, she's just a girl. but like this, she can’t hear me. she never will. Now, she feels utterly hopeless, helpless, alone. I fall to my knees, tears pouring from my eyes and anger seeping from my pores. Exasperated and in more pain than bearable, the girl rips the photos out of her pocket and scatters them through the blackness, screaming for it to go away, all of it, but it helps nothing. Why does she destroy everything? She collapses into incohesive tears, curled up on the floor, taunted by her shadows, maddeningly alone.

Finally the picture fades into the image it began as, the girl giving the sarcastic smirk that I was scowling at. I still know not what to say. She may be utterly flawed, but those flaws were what made her. Every smile, every nightmare, every second of envy, every bitter heartbreak, every semblence of insanity, those terrors created her. They are her past, her future, her present. Some days she’s four, some days she’s ten, some days she’s fifteen again even though I know she’d never admit it. In that smirk I watch her pride and strength rise above her vulnerability. That smirk, that perceived confidence, shows everyone the oddly shaped diamond. Yet it's those eyes of hers, blue-green movie screens, that flicker how stupidly human she really is. In her messy hair lies a pencil, in her hand a notebook. If concentrating hard, I could see on its inside cover all the thrown photos glued haphazardly to it. They were painful to remember, but even more painful to forget. She has grown so much, through each pivotal moment, and my contradicting feelings of annoyance and admiration don’t know how to compromise. This familiar stranger could be less hyperactive, less obnoxious, less secretive sometimes. Yet as my fingers splay across the glass, I don’t know what she would be without her bravery, her pain, her beautiful imagination. her fingers twitch with the murmurs of insanity, but I know she’s handled worse. This is just another challenge to overcome. Our eyes meet defiantly and we both laugh in synchronization. She will always be challenging me in the glass, reminding me of who she is so I never am able to forget it. I glance down and my spare hand runs across my notebook, and with each painful photograph I smile. They are her world; my world. Without them, without this pain, we’d be nothing. My fingers freeze on a final photo; the cracked, crushed picture of fifteen year old me. Giving her one last, thoughtful glance, I turn from the mirror and move on with our life, reminding myself to wonder what she would do, how I would react, and make sure to live every day remembering who we are; we are beautifully broken glass.

I'm so, so very tired.

The past two years of the fluctuating, of changing, of tears, of sorrow, of mania, of certifiable madness have drained me. Gods only know how awful I will feel in the years to come, if I feel drained right now. How can I live a lifetime like this?

My fingers are heavy on the keyboard, slamming down every word, like trying to made an imprint of myself on this laptop, so I may live forever somewhere, particularly since it is so likely for me to die.

I hate to admit that. I hate it. I'm not suicidal right now, but in these moments I realize I may be the cause of my own destruction. Correction, it is highly likely I will be. And I am so very tired of fearing everything, including myself.

Tired of all the eyes watching me, and all all the hours wasted crying, and...

I'm trying to find something to pride myself in, and the only thing I can be proud of is the fact I have not pined profusely over a boy in weeks. I have pined, that is true, its hard for one like myself not to fantasize and latch onto someone. But I have not felt the heavy weight in my chest of being so in love that it hurts.

All my poems have been about me. Kind of self-centered, huh? But I guess its an improvement, trying to find myself over trying to find myself in others. Over losing my mind over some person.

I'm still tired, though. I'm surprised I managed to write this much, for my hands feel too heavy to move much.

Maybe I'll curl up on the couch and pray the emptiness goes away and maybe life will stop allowing me to feel terrible things.

Just maybe.

Six years ago, the normal, brainy girl named Grace died. At least, that's when her body was found. It's likely she'd been dead a couple years longer than that. She was survived by bubbly friends and a doting family, who all were wracked by the loss.

Why is this eulogy so late, though, if she was so beloved? Because no one noticed she was dead, really dead, until today. Not even Grace.

When she noticed her brain wasn't quite right, she knew things would never be the same. That's how having a bad brain worked. She'd always be taking medicine, she'd always be watching every little move she made. It was a constant production, keeping all the parts together. Grace was strong and brave and quick to jump onto that.

However, somehow it slipped right by her how permanent everything was.

She knew to stay healthy she'd always have to be working on herself. She knew she'd constantly be changing. She knew she'd be a hard person to love.

But she didn't realize that her brain would stay broken, really broken, no matter how much of a good girl she was.

Six years ago, the girl named Grace was reserved but passionate. Extroverted but in love with her books. A straight A student. A great friend. The perfect daughter. She was messy, but she was focused. And maybe she didn't sleep a lot, but boy did she have so many dreams.

The broken brain took away invigorating, sleepless nights.

The broken brain chased off all her friends.

The broken brain tanked her grades.

The broken brain made her feel safer alone.

The broken brain made her organize everything, because it was the only thing she could control.

But what made it easier was seeing all her progress, watching the graph of her illness rise, even if it was still a jagged line. Grace felt that even if she was broken and moody and difficult that she was getting better.

But today, everything changed.

Looking at all her meds and all her schedules and all her coping strategies and all her perfect practices in place, and still feeling hollow inside, she realized it wasn't just that other people couldn't fix her and make her whole again.

She couldn't either.

No matter how hard she worked, or how much she believed, or how many times she corrected for every little warning sign, she would always be sick. Grace could do everything in her power to make things easier, do everything right, but nothing was going to fix her brain. It's almost like Bipolar Disorder is a chronic illness or something.

After all this hopeful time, she had to accept it wasn't just that past Grace was gone, it was that the ease and sanity that came with her was dead, too.

Being the perfect good girl Grace just never will be enough. Not to make her healthy again. If she spends what's left of her life trying to find that, she'll always be disappointed.

While old Grace, sane Grace, is survived by a neater, hardened Grace, she will be missed. The late night homework and laughing sleepovers and baked goods for classmates and indomitable confidence in the things she loves most are gone.

All we have left is to stand tall and move forward.

It's all we've ever had.