And so you enter the wrong room after struggling with the wrong set of keys after dialing the wrong number on a cell phone that isnt yours. You battles with clothes than dont match, a body you didnt bargain for, a mind so far removed from where you sit. You smile an alien smile, you make conversation that you dont care about- and in the meantime you loose yourself.

You start a text message, because you figure you need to talk to someone, because you figure that if these thoughts start fermenting in your head you might end up giving up soon, and so you begin to type. 'I dont think...' and thats it, and thats enough to make you slam your phone shut, and it sits there, unaware of how much has been forsaken through technology and tears.

I dont think i can do this.

Not anymore, the shit has officially hit the ceiling.

What now?

tere bin.

The girl, her life- its all the same. Things still move the way it used to, the days still blend into the nights perfectly, she still smiles and laughs and works hard and gives presentations and writes papers. She stresses and de-stresses, she inhales and she exhales. She sleeps, she wakes- sometimes, she dreams too.

The life is the same.

Its just without you. Im simply stating fact here.

I miss you.

The crowd cheers, the phone rings, three missed calls since I last checked.
As we were talking outside, it was cold. Getting up and sitting down when you're wearing a skirt is difficult.
As I walked to get my smoothie, I notice a sway in my walk. I looked down, turquoise skirt accented with red and white. I looked pretty, I decided. Hell, with the cigarette and wavy hair I might even get away with looking attractive.
I climbed out a window and stepped out into a place I had never been before. After a considerable amount of months it feels like you know every nook and cranny of your college campus, and for the most part its true. But sometimes, all you need is a little change of perspective, and hey your standing at the roof of a building that you walk by everyday on your way to econ.
Thoughts are stalled, growth is stunted, you feel like you've been walking towards point A for a long tme until you realize that point A and point C are just spectrum's in a life that youve always identified by either black or white. And the points scramble, and the thoughts melt away into a plastic container that you identify as leftovers, and you run, you run so fast that your feet loose control and you seem to be carried by sheer momentum. You smile, you blink rapidly, you assure people that you are in fact okay, that you were dragged here by some friends and are completely happy standing in the corner while people dance. You say that you rather keep your coat on thankyouverymuch and tell people you're sleepy when they come over, engulf you with bear hugs and try to escort you to the middle of the crowd. There is a very thin line between the people who are doing and me, who is on most days only able to tolerate watching rather than participating. The line is flimsy, you could choose to cross over anyday, any moment, be part of the it crowd again, the ones you located and put together and made the most chill happiest freshman group ever. But you smile, enter the dance with a senior and leave when you realize hes having a good time. Its not fair, to always sanction you to my misery and so I slip out when I see some girls coming up to you and you smiling after getting some well deserved attention. I walk back quietly, quickly, you call to ask me where I dissapeared off to. I tell you half truths and for the first time you dont argue, tell me to sleep well and hang up. Perhaps youre finally sick of me, god knows I am. I dont see how anyone could want to hang out with me for extended periods of time. I would waste brain cells on you baby, but my minds preoccupied, perhaps in a different time or at a different place, ill have the patience to love you back.

even on the good days, you arnt able to do what you want when you want it. odd.

this is a diary of every single thing i do. i need to jot down what i feel when i feel it so that i can constantly remind myself of the ins and outs of intuition.

right now, im stable.

lets see how things change after the nap.

i hate you.

like, i actually hate you.

and i hate the fact that you can still extract such a reaction from me.

I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am ready
I am ready
I am taffy stuck and tongue tied
Stutter shook and uptight
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am ready
I am ready
I am fine

I am covered in skin
No one gets to come in
Pull me out from inside
I am folded and unfolded and unfolding
I am colorblind
Coffee black and egg white
Pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am ready
I am ready
I am fine

Stop shaking. Stop it. Stop shaking please. You're scaring me. Stop shaking. Please. I beg you. Please. Stop.Stop. Please.

And you turnover in bed, hoping the new position will help you find your center.

And you manage to laugh at your own fucking insanity.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no.

we could heal each other.

I was hoping, I was hoping.

I hate it when songs can extract emotion of such extremes.

Alanis, I will always always love you.

911

You put on a white shirt that has this blue pattern down the neck, you look at yourself in the mirror, baggy jeans, oddly fitting shirt, face full of pubescent acne, bottle neck glasses, frizzy hair tied up for ultimate comfort. You smile, you look pretty, you pick up the brand new cell phone you just got for your fourteenth birthday and head to the car.
Its her birthday, days before the actual day, why she chose to celebrate it so in advance you have no idea. You walk in, go to the no smoking section and see your friends, the boys sitting on one side, the girls on the other. The couples were holding hands under the tables, the boys inhaling their food, the girls eating salads because they were all on diets. You get met with hugs and joy and love and you sit on a table that seated everyone who you would continue loving till the day that they stopped loving you. Best friends, all of them, till now, till today.
One of the boys gets up, the girls titter together and you wonder whats going on. He comes and stands next to you and proclaims his never ending love and you smile nervously and tell him to stop kidding around. The girls start shunning you for not taking him seriously, and he pesters on, asking you if you would go out with him soon. You look down at what you're wearing and suddenly, the white shirt with the blue pattern looks so silly when your sitting with some of the most beautiful people you'll ever know. You turn bright red, tell him once again that you saw through the joke and spent the next fifteen minutes staring at your food- untouched. The girls look at you funny, take you to the bathroom and convince you that he's completely in love with you. For a minute, for a slight slight minute you let yourself believe them, that you too could be loved, that someone might buy you things on valentines day, that someone might hold your hand under the table, that your mother will finally stop telling you that no boys will like you because your fat.

You believe till you glance at your watch and realize its the first of April.

It was April fools day, and hey, you were the joke.

Your heart hits cold white tile, and you muster all the strength you can to last through the rest of the day. You cry like a baby when you go home, you cry because your hearts been broken without even being up for sale.

No matter what has changed, no matter how many years have passed, im still there. I still have the ability to feel like that at 4:01 in the morning, four hours after my nineteenth birthday, so many years later, so many lifetimes apart.

The shirts been thrown. The memories? Not so much.

the smoke it sank into my skin.

Being me these days, is not a good person to be. Im stressed and exhausted and overworked. Underloved? Maybe, maybe not. People dont seem to leave, its the one thing that ive always always had going for me. I dont know what it is, I dont know why they stay after I push and shove and struggle to get them away. People stick around, for eternities and moments and hours spent recalling yesterdays and tomorrows and those that were and those that could be.

I dont want to synthesize my life for you, whittle it down into words and accents. It isnt about the instances that I recall, the extreme highs that I have and the heart breaking lows. It isnt my stories, my cute endings, my sentences, my thoughts. My life is how I feel, how my fingers move through air, how my hair flies in a gust of wind. Its the way I walk, dragging my feet, this acute inability to walk in a straight line irrespective of how sober I am. Its the way my eyes will always dissapear when I smile, its the way my smile is crooked, its my laugh, the one that arouses the need to laugh in others.

Its the way I think, its the filters with which I see what is around me, the way I percieve and the way I express, the ins and outs of thought processes. I can decipher you in a second, I will always be intrigued by your insincerity. I live for bursts of emotion, I live for timed pauses, I live for music that molds itself into my life until one can not be defined without the other. I live for my walks back home in the middle of the night, where its just me and my song and my cigarette. And I walk in tune to the music, and I think so many thoughts that it reaches a point where there are so many of something that it amounts to a whole of nothing. I have the oddest of eccentricities, but I love them, I love them because its what makes me different than every other tortured teen trying to find answers in places that ran out of them a long time ago.

I love because I have to, because forces command me to and I simply abide. I leave a lot to intuition, logic gets me to a point where nothing makes sense and intuition pulls me through.

I will remember this night as one of the happiest of my life
A thankyou to everyone who made it what it was

'You know where we went today?

Where?

To that point, where there was no where else to go

And what did we do there?

We celebrated it. And we celebrated ourselves. We lived.'

I was hoping.

Its one thiry in the morning in Karachi on the 15th of April.

Happy Birthday to me.

pavement.

Touch my mouth with your hands
Touch my mouth with your hands.

I wake up today after my second nap of the day to see that its about eight something in the evening. I groan, knowing that there were a good five to six hours left of the day and even the strongest sleeping pills wont allow me to sleep again. I sit up, check my phone and decide to call back everyone who had called. Today, had been terrible, an anxiety attack in a busy smoothie bar wasnt exactly classy. I just get overwhelmed by people these days, I dont watch tv anymore because of all the faces.

After hearing about all the plans for the evening I lie and tell everyone that im going to study. I reach out for my ipod and realize I left it at your place. I also realized that one of the missed calls was yours. I dont call, put on my coat, pick up my bag and make the short walk to your apartment. I knock, let myself in and see you on the phone. I wait for you to be done, because you look all serious, playing the role of an economics graduate speaking to your new boss long distance in Barcelona. You finish and ask me to sit and tell me you were glad I came over, the whole campus was off going to some party and you really werent in the mood. My phone starts buzzing and I pick up realizing it a dear friend who I havnt seen in ages. I call him over and before we know it im sitting in a room listening to Swedish music, drinking Indian wine and playing Jamaican dominos with a bunch of people who I truly forgot how much I adore.

It was a little bit of relief.

Once the night was over, I stay to help clean and you insist on walking me back. So at three in the morning, we attempted to withstand the blasting cold air, trying to look sober. I was singing to myself, you kept looking at me, one cigarette being passed in between two people. We pass the grate and you linger, so we stop, and I start, a little by little, im so scared, im so broken, im so so so so small. And you sit and listen and mumble and smile and shake your head when you disprove. Ten minutes, and I felt cleaner, and perhaps a little more ready, still very very far away from anything secure, but a little more present, a little more aware. I had no desire to run, no desire to burst into tears, no desire to avoid your questioning glare.

We reach my room and I turn around to give you a hug. You remind me about that thing we have to go to tomorrow at noon and I groan. You hug back and whisper that you love me and walk away.

and he cried, 'my life is in shambles!'

Wow.

The song plays, over and over again. It plays because I dont know what else to do with it, it plays because I dont have any answers for the questions it makes me ask myself, it plays because it somehow manages to alleviate the troubles while still pressing upon wave upon wave of grief. Its 2:20 in the morning, late Thursday night, tomorrow being the first and last holiday for the rest of the semester. Im sitting covered in my comforter, typing because I dont know what else to do with myself, typing because I dont have an answer for the questions my words are asking me, typing because I need the shelter of my laptop so I can cry in peace while my roommate sits only seven feet away.

How did I get here?

I think I might be clinically depressed.

Because, this isnt normal. This really isnt normal.

You dont care. You dont care.

I dont think anyone does.

Im such a good liar, im such a good actress.

Addictions. Wake up, brew coffee, run downstairs for a smoke. Come back up, sip feverishly, burn tongue. Put phone off, throw it into some obscure part of your room. Put on everything black you own. Dry hair to perfection, thick rimmed glasses, coat, scarf, bag, ipod. Walk out, see people you know but adopt a demure version of civil inattention and act like you're really busy untangling your headphones. Stroll to class, huffing and puffing, walk, climb up stairs, sit. Smile, discuss, take notes, employ intelligence when necessary. Walk out, enter next class, lather rinse repeat. Fake going to the bathroom after class to ensure you dont meet anyone, walk back to room, pick up food on the way so that you dont have to bother with the cafteria. Get back, turn on phone, check voicemail, call you back and tell you ive changed my mind about the movie. Meet up with old vices and indulge in bad habits, stumble back into my room so far gone before sunset, have half a sleeping pill and go to bed. Wake up at around eight, turn phone back on, check voicemail, unlock door, stare idly at books. Meet old vices again, indulge again, pop two sleeping pills and smile about being done with another day.

Addictions, so unattractive.

The Atlantic was born today and I'll tell you how...
The clouds above opened up and let it out.

You dont care, You dont care.
I dont think anyone does.

I played with the idea of transferring today, just like I play with the ideas of self mutilation and crossing the street with my eyes shut.

'You've made an empire for yourself, and now you dont know what to do with it.'

I used to be the popular kid, the International who had made the transition excessively easily, the girl who went out Thursday night Friday night and Saturday night. The girl who still did great in school, still had time for org's and community service and still managed to hold her head high and smile through the stress and the tension that comes with being a freshman in a state thats colder than Siberia.
Things changed a lot since ive come back after winter break, ive become this tiny tiny little girl, so unstable, so acutely uncomfortable in her own skin. Yesterday, as I was drying my hair I caught a glimpse of

I was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere
When the water filled every hole.
And thousands upon thousands made an ocean,
Making islands where no island should go.
Oh no.

myself in the mirror and actually paused to exclaim at my sever unattractiveness. I just sat and stared at myself, all of a sudden transported back into the skin of a twelve year old who thought that no one would ever love her because she didnt love herself. The girl who had her heart broken on April Fools day, the girl who was the token ugly kid in a group of some of the most beautiful girls, the girl who never truly died inside me.

I shake uncontrollably sometimes, I shake when im lying in bed silently, I shake because my mind doesnt know how to be still anymore.
And the song keeps on playing, on repeat, over and over again.

Those people were overjoyed; they took to their boats.
I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
The rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door have been silenced forever more.
The distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
It seems farther than ever before
Oh no.

There is only so much you can before people start giving up on you. I havnt spoken to my parents in weeks, I havnt spoken to anyone from home in ages, I dont see my friends unless I have to, I lock my door so that the girls think im never there. I dont go into public spaces, I havnt been in the campus center all week, I havnt been to class much, I dont study in the library. These days, its me and my bed and my laptop and my addictions. We make a lovely little family, hibernating in my dorm room, lying on top of each other till we all flow into each other, left out in the cold cold air, mildew and mold forming, layer over layer, still we're just flaky pieces of ignorable trash.

I need you so much closer

I dont know what to do with myself anymore, im too tired to change this, im too burnt out to continue doing it. I need you to save me, but im never going to ask. I need you to save me but I know you wont. I need you to save me, but I dont know if im worth the struggle.

Baby, I think im running out of tears.

Baby, I need you to save me, because I wont let anyone else but you do it.

About three weeks ago, we had a conversation that I dont think ill ever forget. You told me that I made denial beautiful and I laughed and told you that I frightfully good at it and that it felt good to just forget and be happy for a change. You looked at me, silently for about a minute and then said, 'You're going to crash sooner or later, just so you know, its going to come, and thats the day you pick up your phone and give me and everyone else who loves you a call.' And I smile, hoping upon hope that your wrong, or that alteast the crash comes during the summer.

But here I am crashing. At 3 am, stale tears stinging my cheeks..

..hoping that the next time I walk through traffic with my eyes shut something interesting happens.

I need you so much closer.