I am just this girl sitting recovering after walking in a store where I had to use my passport and looked like a teenage ******* with my sunglasses and father's coat. my eyes were red because of allergies and I cried a little on the walk up and, well, I was high; "shook like a ****** at a wienie roast" as my dad always said. I was standing there and forgot what brand of cigarettes I wanted when I had to repeat myself (I stutter when I'm nervous); I thought I could get away with it if I said 'I just started a new medication' and get the assurance from a cashier whose face I recognized. just someone to give me a boost.

then I went outside to a bench on the side of the building. the traffic and parking lot were in the way, but the clouds and birds around everywhere were brilliant against the bright sky, the trees were magnificent and striking, the sunshine was on my face; I can do this. I am a Tree, reaching lower then growing higher: and I am Magnificent.

The walk before was nauseatic cuz the meds make me dizzy and vomity and of course, I was high. I wear sunglasses to distance me from the people I'm about to see, from all these people that I'm scared of. the wind is bitter and cold, I'm nervous and shaky. I haven't been able to stop playing scenarios out in my head that panic me, a reaction to my active travelling anxiety and the stress of keeping up a conversation with a soft as oatmeal woman who asks me personal questions and is very pleasant to talk to, though kind of doughy.

--my dad came into my room one night. I was having a minor meltdown coming down from the Night of Hate the previous night where I pulled all my eyelashes out and I pulled my hair and I chewed my cheeks apparently, grit my teeth apparently, hit myself hard and hateful. My dad came in to talk to me and I asked him when I knew I should go to a hospital. I cried and I'm honest that I still don't want to be Here, that life is still unbearably grating. I'm just letting it happen I do what I feel like doing to keep me up. I don't tell him that I choked myself with sweater strings a week ago on the living room couch while my spirit mother was in the other room and all the precious ones down the hall asleep. dad sits down on the bed and admits he's "never dealt with this side of things" and rubbed my back while I sobbed. when I calmed down and I was finally wiping the tears away, cleaned up and I was mostly able to breathe again, he got an idea that comes from the most loving heart and his quirky way of cheering me up. when I was a Trouble Child, my dad would take me out and do something with me. just talked to me, paid attention, joked, laughed: he always says when he's like this he always says "I know I can make you laugh" and usually does. so he looked at me that night and said "I know of something to make you smile; a pill that makes you smile Instantly!" I choked, sunshine smile burst and still wiping tears, 'exstacy?' and received my favorite dad laugh, the one when he really finds something perfect. The one I got when E stepped on the coffee I'd accidentally spilled in the hallway, and she said with a voice so full of disgust that I bent over, tears rolling, hands on knees, laughed til it hurt "I stepped on ****". he recovers from the e-joke says "That was quick!" in a voice that loved it. The opinion that deeply approves (when most times he is disappointed, interrupts me, tells me I'm wrong, more like mum than he'll ever see) lifts me up a little: gratification soul--

I sit on the bench and smoke with shaky hands and sunglasses giving me space, people looking at me (iknowthey'relookingatmeiknowitiknowit); I eat two sandwiches. the prescription makes me tremble shake queasy nauseous, now dizzy. I didn't sleep last night because I was too nervous.

I smoke another cigarette and cry a little, less than ten scared tears slide down my cheeks. Another girl slips in and I calm immediately. There is a guy hovering near me with his own cigarette. It feels like he's loitering in my awful day: I don't trust new people. I've noticed he thinks I'm attractive. he finally leaves and I finally drink my coffee that has finally cooled; I can finally leave in a few minutes. I did it. I failed a month ago and my heart broke...This is the first time I've seen so many people since...I did it. I walk home and sob. all I want is you, Handsome.

If the construction worker who was scraping away at the pillar bottom not ten feet away from me, through the entire bench scenario, had come up to me and asked what was wrong, I would have told him "I tried to die a month ago and failed. This is the first time I've been out in public since, and it's really hard."

But I did it.