boys and men

I think, in all considerable belief, both my parents as well as my upbringing are the root of my confusion; regarding boys, and men. ‘Boys’, being the ones I end up attracting a lot of the time; wounded men, battling their own inner confusion. Sometimes they have ‘mother issues’, or ‘daddy issues’. I consider myself to have both — being the child product, a five year old enduring the bitter fallout of a tumultuous marriage, to say the least. Being a ‘child of divorce’, I know what true loss, grief, and devastation feels like. And the shame, the shame of acting out as a little girl in primary school, the shame of a girl wishing she still had her parents together. By the time I was in 2nd grade, I developed an ‘attitude’. My mission, whenever with relatives, or my parents, was to beg the question: WHY DID YOU GET DIVORCED? WHY? I WANT TO KNOW! WHY CAN’T I BE LIKE THE OTHER KIDS WHO HAVE PERFECT FAMILY LIVES!? WHY CAN’T YOU STILL BE TOGETHER? Oh, I wish I was born in New Zealand, oh how things would be different… Oh how I wish I was born in Italy, then my parents would still be together… Oh, so much confusion… Where are you GOD? DOES GOD EVEN EXIST? What is the means in listening to the lord’s word, when literally nothing around you makes any sense.

The fighting, the abuse, the yelling. Getting in between mummy and daddy and telling them to stop hurting each other, please… Or mother displaying her golden, crystal-endowed crucifix necklace, a gift from my paternal grandmother, my Nonna Carmela. Like my middle name — I was Carmela’s first grandchild. My mother still wears this gilded, glistening pendant bore upon her tight, veiny chest, hiding the Double EE size silicone under her skin. She isn’t authentic… just as she was never an authentic Catholic to be forbidding my sister and I to go trick or treating at Halloween, because apparently only Americans still celebrated it anymore. She never thought of the kids, only herself — and that was the problem… just similarly so, my father’s fiery demands on the phone to give directions to the nearest playground to do some exercise before his stripping gigs while I was rightfully busy and absorbed in something else… or his stern instructions to ‘not look at anyone at all’, when he dumped us sisters on the chairs to anxiously read magazines while he went into the gym for an hour, on his weekend with us. Not really appropriate parenting on either side in my own opinion.

What I am trying to get at, is that, parents and upbringings aside, the second a guy starts using you for what he deems your ‘worth’ to be, or starts disrespecting you, like he does other women, there is an indicatory problem. A red flag, so to speak. I am somebody who can definitely speak openly on the topic of abusive relationships. I have witnessed it around me, and I have inevitably almost, stuck out for relationships that involved drama with men, or dramatic men. But then again, what examples have I had? My mother chose to live de facto with her partners, and with Todd she kept it on and off for about a decade or so. The amusing thing is that he used to be in the army, his whole family served in the family. His family were quite Nationalist-Australian-British heritage. My mother got with him when she was going through the divorce, or not long after. Rebound style, and she found him off a dating site. He was quite rough and unfazed emotionally, but Tamika and I were just little girls, and although he was buff, it was no excuse for violence or man-handling. Jasmine/mother still writhes over the fact Todd CHOSE to marry another lady. Not Jasmine. He had a baby with his wife, and he’s engaging in a new life, one without Jasmine lingering all the time.

My mother tends to get ‘nice vintage character homes’ off real estate dot com for higher rent then she can usually afford when she is single. That is the memo, the premise. Appearances. Living on Jersey street was pleasant, sort of. My bedroom was the most pleasant sanctuary or escape. And I was the oldest ‘child’, now adolescent and scapegoated. Living on Pearson place, Floreat, was pleasant intermittently. The most pleasant thing was my bedroom, I thought. I was relentlessly labelled ‘KLEPTO! Kleptomaniac!’ for borrowing Jasmine’s Doterra oils for diffusing in my bedroom, or my Wiccan rituals. Dan The Man loved having a go at me whenever I ‘stole’ something like a stapler or scissors from HIS office. Come on, man. I was doing ATAR for Christ’s sake. Be proud of me for once, instead of calling me ‘clapoodia’, ‘kiddo’ and ‘klepto’ all the time. And in year 12 I decided I ought to move to lovely old Brabham in the house that my father owned up there in the valley. Why? Because Dan The Man threw me onto my bed and started trying to beat me off, as I tried kicking him off and screaming for my mother’s aid. She ate at the dinner table with my brother for about 10 minutes or so, before coming in and hopelessly pleading he stop, while he turned back, with the black, coldness in his eyes and the seriousness he implied as he tried to keep on hitting me more. Jasmine never got in and actually interfered, no, she pretended she would leave Dan if he wouldn’t stop. I never felt safe anymore. I started smoking cigarettes that year. And Cannabis, occasionally. But you know what? I was fucking seventeen, in my last year of high school, and I was STRESSED.

My experience of year 12 was fucked. Right from the get go I was stressed about the imminent school ball and my lack of a dress or a date. Jasmine didn’t care. She and Dan said they were way more stressed than I was, so how dare I be? I moved to my father’s just before my 17th birthday. I wore my Aunt’s old engagement dress, a beautiful teal taffeta ball gown. Nonna helped arrange the hair and makeup, and with the matching jewellery and the clutch, and I paid for my new shoes. In the winter of discontentment that year, I dated Dylan [F]Agostin. Father dated Celine. Both relationships were meant for disaster. Dylan was too much like his father Frank, he was mean and controlling, emotionally abusive. Looking back now it reminds me of Frank the Giant Bunny Rabbit in Donnie Darko. How he got killed for being too much like his father, Frank. And frankly speaking, I’m glad my suicide attempt taught her the one thing she needed to finally learn: to go back home and resolve her issues with her parents… to stop being a tourist forever, awaiting her Visa in Fantasyland. My father has been through several broken relationships, literally countless. It is sad for a girl to have to lose another potential mother figure, again. For father to slam his array ex-girlfriends with every mental disorder and derogatory under the sun. How could he be so unforgiving, or in denial about his own wrong moves in relationships. How young he acts. Like a child trying to spoil and treat his mother. Except it is not his mother, it is A mother. It is his girlfriends that get the most care, the most gifts, the most thought, and that notion and childish mentality really starts to hurt and burn like a blister in the brain.

L — I love your smile, your voice, your deep laugh. The glistening of light in your eyes. Your inner depth; that intrigue — that shell you have built around yourself. Your tall frame that hangs over me; the stance that hypnotizes me. That way you grab onto my waist from behind and the way your eyes magnetize mine. I like your chilled out aura. Your ‘bad guy’ trope going on that you’ve always kinda had. The type that makes me feel safe and that can protect me. And we could educate each other; influence each other. We can watch my DVD’s together. And I could show you how different the house is to when you first came over. But I hate the fact that the second you leave I exit your mind, yet you constantly linger on in my dreams… I hate that you are not who you seem. I wish you could fucking call me, or come over again, and I wish I could be totally open with you. I wish we could just be on the same page and truly know where we stand. I hate the inconsistency and unpredictability. I wish I wasn’t just a seasonal one night stand to you. I wish you could let yourself be vulnerable around me. I wish you gave a fuck like I do. All I wanted — and ever want — is to go with the flow. But you, like many, are resistant, dismissive and disallowing. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps you do have some feeling you are just too apprehensive to pursue?? Or, am I just a delusional love fool? I wish you could open up to me more, I wish I felt like you trusted me. I wish you could be more sincere and transparent with me, what’s to hide after all? I wish I could get a proper chance to show you that you are special to me, more than you think. You’re not perfect and that’s part of what seems to attract me to you so much. But I know I have the tendency to idealize and dismiss that sometimes you are problematic for me. You’re stinging a wound, man. You have mother issues too, so how do you not understand?

F — you seemed to come out of nowhere. I had always dreamt of a new guy coming to the school that liked good music, had long hair, played guitar, what have you. But oh my god I was fascinated by you. I would blush and try to look away whenever I saw you. But there is no escaping it. your hair seeps down as you pace hallways ever so free and gracefully. A Sagittarius, for sure. And with a beast of a car too. I loved how I always used to catch the same bus as you, and oh how I missed that. you like what I post on a couple of social platforms, and oh, how I wish one day I could test the nerve to actually message you. Picked up a Q, found the right place; session for one, ‘ cause I’m sick of saving face. I don’t really wanna smoke alone, you’re the only company I want; a familiar space that never exchanged mind, and a lucky chance is too good not to entertain. We met glances, countless times, but I do hope it’s not in vain. Laugh at my humility and revel in the sweet density, ’cause I make it cloudy. Thursday the blues hit me bad, but a few hits of heaven vanished the mundane; in company of an old somebody, though suspense gets me jittery; to have dreamt you is hard to ignore and time is ticking to reap; I just long for something out of the ordinary, so please amuse me; because the charm is hard to fight off, the excitement lights up my nights; longing for something extraordinary. Is there a web you’re spinning, or am I just batshit dreaming? I don’t know you, do assure me in a gesture, are you who you seem? You could be perfect, you could be cold. You could be trembling in your feet, or maybe you can’t breathe. Am I off-putting, or are you on the wrong footing? I don’t really know you, don’t really know you at all, so I figure I don’t really care, because why dare? Been there before and it’s never gotten me anywhere. So please, dude. Be more candid, I double dare you. If you give me a chance I could show you, I’m not who I seem to be… You’re so bloody confusing, do you even exist? The emptiness succumbs me; it’s nothing but a crumbling fantasy. You don’t make sense, am I dull, or are you just dense? You’re just triggering me man, just be honest. Anyway, why do I care — you cut your fucking hair.

The context is I wrote these pieces of poetry when I idealized those boys. I wrote these excerpts earlier this year. I was frustrated on the inside with both my interactions with these people. They didn’t get it. It just didn’t click right for them. But I had endured an abusive relationship to a 27 year old when I was eighteen. And he still lived with his parents, and for good fucking reason. He wasn’t raised right, and he was the eldest, first child. His younger sister was doing much better than him in life, and he was so so bitter about it. And so, this bitterness projected in acts of rage and disrespect against me. Looking back, it sounds a little similar to the story of Evan Rachel Wood and her relationship with Marilyn Manson when she was freshly eighteen, and oh how she longed for freedom and this adventure he led her on. She was so young, so innocent. But Evan’s demeanor has changed, she has gained wisdom over the years, but nonetheless she is a survivor. Of physical assault. Of sexual assault. Of abusive relationships with older men, such as Marilyn Manson. Your perspective certainly shifts once you have endured abuse. You become hypervigilant, you gain a bit more paranoia so to speak. You mature. But my oh my, how it is like searching for the field of red poppies in the Wizard of Oz, when you can only see all around you, yellow Dandelion weed flowers — Taraxicum. I still remember when I was a little girl at home and I went to the park across the road and collected all those little flowers and took them home and started preparing cupcake mix with little yellow flowers and green stems for the kids in my class to enjoy for my birthday… what the hell was Jasmine doing? Gambling on the desktop playing those fucking candy crush looking games all day?

Appreciating the beauty in everything but myself, men come, say, ‘you’re so pretty’, but I don’t see it; I’m in ill health. Keep chasing kryptonite for some sick kind of respite, people say, ‘you look good’; but it’s just a vicarious brotherhood of perverted fiends. Tell me what you want, fucking tell me what you mean; so I can wipe my hands clean of the needless deceiving, because I’m tired of bleeding, just to feel alive, I just want to feel ALIVE.

I am feeling much better now. Yesterday I caught up with Dylan Maxville, and it was a really good time. We had pasta and watched looking for Alibrandi and chatted while listening to good music. The social interaction definitely made me feel better. I also was further reaffirmed that this Ethan guy does in fact have an interest in me — I need to stop using bad experiences in the past to hinder myself from seeing the true potential of what ‘could be’. I feel like I waver strongly between nihilistic realism, and romantic idealism. But, alas, now I am more faithful and grounded, I can’t wait for Friday when I finally get to meet him. He sounds fucking AWESOME. He’s into a diverse range of REALLY GOOD music and he’s in a band. Bassist I believe. He drives a Ford Maverick. How classic is that?! He lives way north but honestly, as long as it’s in the opposite direction of the south, that really doesn’t bother me. He’s blonde with long hair, appears tall (which I love), and he has such beautiful androgynous features. He’s 18, though I seriously thought he was in his early twenties, LOL. I’m actually a few weeks older than him — he’s an Aries. An Aries, I know, BUT he has his moon in Taurus, his Mercury & Rising in PISCES, and also has the same Venus and Mars placements as me. It seems like we could really get along. He surfs and goes to festivals. And he smokes pot too. And he has a job, thus is obviously a ‘functional’ member of society. So, all in all he’s my kinda guy, to be ever so honest.

The story of how I actually came to talk to this guy is interesting: So, on the last night of leavers, a night I can barely recall, apparently, I caught the attention of some guy by announcing that I loved his Alice In Chains shirt. Apparently, we had a chat about the band and added each other’s Facebooks. I cannot recall. Hahaha. But, nevertheless, me and this guy, Charlie, have been speaking on and off over the past year with several ditched plans to go to Silverchair tribute gigs together. And I swear every time we would occasionally have a conversation; I would look at his Facebook profile to see if I remembered his face at all. Anyway, I came across a photo where this other guy in it just looks so candid, and, well, just absolutely beautiful, in some androgynous kind of way. I think I actually added Ethan on Facebook when I was still with Keiran. And I thought he seemed like a hell chill person, but I wasn’t really in a position to do anything about it.

So, not too long ago, Charlie and I made plans to go to a Nirvana/Green Day/Silverchair tribute gig in early March, and I looked at his Facebook again, came across that same picture, and at some point when I was feeling pretty content and stoned, I chucked this Ethan guy a message. For a second, I started to doubt my audacity but alas, we had a really good conversation and I discovered he had gone to the Tool concert too. We have been talking virtually every day and he is definitely keen to meet me. I wonder what idea he has of me. That I’m a cute girl that’s into her astrology and old music and I have my own place, which seems to be envied/desired by many? I haven’t given out too much information about myself in fear of being abandoned/rejected for being ‘mentally unstable’, but I just can’t wait to show him what I’m like. My CD’s, my films, books, art, my fondness for nice aromas, my down to earth personality, and so forth.

And, likewise I am really compelled to meet him in person and get to know him; see if there’s a vibe or chemistry there perhaps? Lately this has been getting me anxious because I’ve been overly critical of myself. But, if anything, this should be an opportunity for the opposite — remembering how truly great I am. And that is NOT narcissistic for me to say, because for a long time the very essence of my being was fought against, and now I am slowly regaining my sense of value and worth and also TRUST. Anyway, on the work front, I feel very unheard and offended by the reactions of both Mel and Grace. So yeah, I don’t know what to do there. Do I try to have a chat with Aunty Melissa? I just feel like she won’t understand or empathise with how I’ve been feeling lately. Met up with Ethan on Friday night. At first, I was fairly quiet and reserved but we bonded really well eventually. We watched about 15 minutes of Donnie Darko before things started getting steamy. He’s so affectionate and passionate and adoring. He also got us some Coronas’ from the liquor store up the road, to which I happily mused: ‘’cheers for the beers’’. I became pretty drunk confident — but we also opened up more and vibed really well. Is it totally cliché to admit that he’s the epitome of my ‘type’ of guy? He’s androgynously attractive and maybe even carries some fair balance between the Divine masculine and feminine…

Last week I was so hypomanic. The Silverchair tribute gig on Friday night with Charlie and Chloe was amazing. Saw Ethan last Tuesday when he came over after work, and he drove me to my local Coles to get groceries, which is when I came to the realization that suddenly toilet paper is on rations with this PANDEMIC. Anyway, afterwards, we fucked, and I was going to have him stay for dinner/stay the night. But at some point he admitted he had a lot of things to do back at home, and, given his fulltime work roster, I COMPLETELY understood that he would have felt done in with so many things to get done. So yeah, he didn’t stay the night Tuesday. I really appreciated his openness and honesty, though. He did, however, stay the night on Thursday. It was unexpected, might I add — part of his motivation to stay the night here was because he wasn’t getting along with his stepfather, but he didn’t delve into it. He just said there were ‘good times and bad times’ — which again, I TOTALLY understood, adding from my own experience living with Mum and Dan. We sashed, we fucked, we watched Candy. He loved it; he thanked me for introducing him to it.

Afterwards, it was late, or early in the morning more-like, and I really didn’t want to keep him up because I knew he had work early. In the morning, I made us both some soy caramel lattes, and then he headed off for work. The goodbye was quick and the expression in my glance of him lingered afterwards, but nonetheless, somewhat hopeful and assured, I just smoked myself into oblivion and then went back to bed. I hoped he would go to the gig, but part of me just couldn’t actually envision it happening — because he didn’t. I didn’t really care. Saturday night I had the catering shift. All I really wanted to do was see Ethan. He said he was having a quiet weekend. Apparently that’s unlike him and he ‘’will be drinking’’ on weekends. Anyway, work on Saturday was stimulating at best, and then tedious at worst. We left at 1:30am! Sunday, Monday, Tuesday (my birthday) and Wednesday, I asked Ethan if he wanted to come over, and he always had ‘something’ on. I knew he was smitten on me, but then I needed to see him again in person. Wanted to get to know him and likewise have him know me. But no.

On my birthday, I saw Mum and Tomyris for breakfast, and it actually went really well. Seeing her all motherly and seriously attentive was nice. She gave me her Doterra oils I used to ‘steal’ (borrow), the velvet curtains I used to have in my bedroom, her Bellini, and a Maxwell-Williams dish set, gold-plated from ‘their’ (Mum and Dad’s) wedding. She said she would take me shopping next week for a birthday present. Then I had a session at home before seeing my cousin Olivia for free birthday San Churros for two. I asked Ethan if he wanted to come over (I don’t know… sometime after getting back from birthday Dinner? I was kinda desperate and a little bit skeptical at this point). I could feel myself splitting for a few days because I hadn’t seen him and I wasn’t liking it. I felt crazy and paranoid. So, at Dinner I was in quite a mood, partially because Ethan was busy again and I was anticipating seeing him, in my head. Partially also because family was triggering me, especially Dad.

So, on Wednesday when he wasn’t able to see me, despite claiming he ‘wanted to’ and ‘definitely would’, I was at my wits end, I eventually sent him a message along the lines of: ‘’if you don’t want to see me anymore, just tell me’’… When I saw he had responded straight away, I imagined him thinking I was just hardcore freaking out and jumping to conclusions. But, actually, his response was — in a nutshell: … it’s not that I don’t want to see you anymore, but I can barely look after myself right now, let alone another, and I need to focus on my own health first and we should probably just continue getting to know each other as friends and maybe try this again when I feel more like myself, I’m sorry to put you through this ‘because you are a really cool chick’ and blah, blah, blah… Oh yeah, I also forget to mention that he said things were going too fast too soon, or whatever. Um, WHAT? Because he was always the one HITTING on ME. Oh, god, this feels like the Bryce situation all over again and JUST around the corner from the birthday. Last year, it was Nick. Haha.

Does that mean that this is now ANOTHER unstable guy — with daddy issues, amongst the friendzone? Or will it ever resume? He did seem like my type, but things like this tell me I don’t know him like he knows me. Man. The curse of being the Pisces/Virgo is that I am some alluring Manic Pixie Dream Girl with my own scars and baggage, and the tenacity and insight that prevails above all is proven intimidating to those who want to be a savior or something like that. I psych people out. My aura and beauty apparently irresistible, which I excuse for a while but sometimes I want a break from the hair and the kissing and the bleak silence. Absorb some tangible mind, a piece of you; a souvenir. But will you come back? Because I like the game of enticing with a newly acquired sense of magniloquence that touch gives me. If I’m far from boring, then prove it. Chase me. Ask questions. Probe, god damnit. Your talk is too cheap. Somehow my individual sensuality is to blame for their weakness for flesh and the way they went, all… over… their… heads. Initially, I was really upset. And hey, my intuition wasn’t fucking wrong! But I figure everything is fine. I have my own healing to do. He needs time. I have a shit ton of new Letters To Cleo and various other music to listen to and interpret. I’m content with my own anatomy and my precise fingers. I have food, cigarettes, pot, nice smells. What more do I need? I have things to do, I have friends to see, I have study to get back to; work to get back to. I am coping very well and I believe the meds are helping.

Life is very interesting now. For about 2 months or so, Coronavirus has been rampant in Australia. And in the past two weeks, life as we know it has changed. It could be like this for 6 months or more. The current conditions are that no more than 2 people should be meeting/gathering and we are on an essential lockdown whereby it is clear to only leave the house for essential groceries and such. Centrelink payments will gain an additional $550 p/fortnight for the next 6 months, effective late April. I am more than fine with all of this. Life has been a little bit scattered the past couple of months. This next 6 months or so is equivalent to a factory reset. I don’t have to worry about work. And when it becomes available, I should have a lucky chance. I can do all the things I need to do. I can blog. I can write. I can get my bloody R.S.A done. I can do my rituals again. No excuses. I can wear whatever I want. Get more piercings. And TATTOOS (in a couple weeks) and dye ye my hair any colour under the sun. The opportunities are endless. REAP it. Money will be less of a problem. Hell, social anxiety and the need for PERSONAL SPACE won’t be a problem. With an emphasis on staying inside, I can do a lot of online shopping, money management, and home improvement.

I don’t know who to trust anymore. It’s hard, because my 2 guy friends are now no longer. One, being my mate Dylan, who totally breached my personal boundaries after realising he had been touching my upper torso at 4am in the morning — he had passed out in my bed next to me whilst we were watching fight club, regrettably, as now I really, really wish I had chosen to call it a night instead. I thought I was just dreaming of sleeping with Ethan or something. When I woke to my senses, I quickly paced to the bathroom. Somehow my first thought was, ‘I can’t be mad as such, I made this situation inevitable’, but I felt so sick to my stomach in disbelief and despair I was so close to bursting into tears. He was awake by then, and I went out for a well-needed cigarette and, over drags, told him that I was not at all okay with it. But at the same time, he tried to rationalise it by saying he hadn’t had sex in a while and said that his instinct was to just grab unto the female he was sleeping beside.

That’s fucking disgusting. It was a very strange day. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep afterwards. I felt sleepless but startled. I turned to the pot that morning; I felt the strong urge to disengage from reality completely, and I dissociated. My ‘friend’ announced it upon himself that he was going back to bed as he was still tired. I told him that was fine, but on the spare bed. I should have fucking kicked him out. I smoked more and stayed in the opposite end of the house. It was awkward. I wanted him to leave, but I didn’t know how to even say it. And there he was, staying in that room happily on his own for hours, just on his phone. In my house.

I ended up being the one to open the living room door and ask what he was up to, and he was keen as ever when I asked if he wanted to have cones. So, he smoked my cones too. And there was lots of awkward silence and me secretly wanting him fucking gone and telling him I had things on and was basically trying to hint in the politest way possible that he had to kind of leave soon. He eventually did, he got picked up by his mother. Which meant I also had to wait for his mum to drive here because he couldn’t be bothered taking public transport… what made him so reluctant to leave? And the stranger thing, is later on he told me he had been kicked out that night (for not responding to the crisis in the right way/helping around the house, I guess) and he had the audacity to ask if he could rent my spare room. Yeah.

Then there’s Tom, my mate in his early twenties whom I thought I could hold good conversations with and could be open with. I always wondered why he came over all the time, like a magnet to this place. Especially when he was coming over to give me free weed, which I didn’t even need as I buy my own, but he says that he grows it and that he just wants to give some of it away. He gave me a Persian rug, which I really have wanted for a long time, because he said he had it rotting away in storage and so he was happy to donate it to a ‘good home’. I was grateful. But, of course, what was the catch to all this niceness? He eventually confessed, in a text message, ‘’Hey I just wanna tell you that you are reallllly pretty, I hell have a crush on you… isn’t it obvious? I thought I should be up front and say what I’m feeling because you are really starting to tease me with your looks!’’. This was awkward. He had heard me telling him about what happened with Dylan, and how it’s made me think of Ethan again. I’m so up front about being a friend, so why does that have to be manipulated or distorted because they have me as a ‘crush’? Is civil, platonic friendship between the sexes, dead? I told him I was flattered but I only view him as a friend. He seemed to take that on board, but I guess maybe I’m a little naïve on the psyche of men. I basically started to notice he was quite disrespectful to me after that; as if he was acting a certain way towards me with a particular motive in mind this whole time.

There was an incident where, the last time I had him over, he brought over his dog — which, by the way, the day prior, he didn’t really ask if it was okay by me, but was rather placing this upon me with no real choice, which I find pretty rude — and I was under the assumption that he would be on the same understanding that he would have to put his dog out the back as it was a large one and I’m renting this house so I’m definitely reluctant when it comes to introducing anything into the house that could cause damage. When I told him, he was butthurt, and was equally so because I am not so much a dog ‘lover’ as I am for cats such; yes, dogs are cute, no, I will not go up and hug one — unless they’re small, of course. I’m not a fan of being smothered in dog slobber, and all the jumping and barking. On the other hand, I love chasing the affection of a cat, because they just kind of tend to themselves; they don’t bother you as such. Then he went on to say that coming to my place is ‘boring’ because all we ever do is smoke cones apparently (as if that’s all we do!) and that we should get out and do something, meet up with people or something like that. What an absolute tripper. We’re meant to be in iso. I would say, I think it’s okay to have people over at mine, one at a time, providing they have been taking the right precautions. This is fair, because I live alone, and I am young and a bit vulnerable and I do need some level of support. But, no, I will NOT be congregating unnecessarily with others. Not in this time.

He also revealed the real reason he was coming around more now — he wanted to do business with me, in that for what he was growing; he wanted me to be the distributor. He also said he was not going to give me ‘free weed’ anymore (because he couldn’t get in my pants, what a shame) and was instead trying to persuade me to buy what he sells for myself, as well as selling some of his stuff for him, and guaranteed a small cash profit that seemed more like dirty charity to me. It wasn’t even worth it. And it’s not my house to be storing or distributing that stuff from, I rent here through family.

I will not jeopardize my clean record and the trust of my family in order to satisfy the desires of my disgusting, greedy ‘friend’/foe. He coerced me into complying with it at the time of discussion, and he left $150 worth at my house for me to push for him. The days following this strange encounter/business deal, I am since of the assumption that I am deemed to serve no purpose to Tom other than for business now, and I confessed about this all to both Andrew, and then another day, my Father, and you know what? They both said the same thing — ‘’tell him to pick the stuff up and stay away from you’’. And it is because of this it is my understanding that both people care about me in the way in which a father should. Emphasis on the latter mentioned, and that speaks words to me that hit home. It seems like lately I am closer with my father than I am with my mother and I view him in a bit more of a positive light.

Last week, I was grieving in a sense. Grieving the loss of Ethan because I knew he wouldn’t come see me anytime soon, and I knew that was enough to assume we weren’t really going to see each other again. And that’s fine, when you have supportive friends by your side. But my new realization was that the people I was close to; they didn’t really see it that way, because they were more or less the same. Users. Bottom Feeders. Phonies. So, I was also grieving over the fact that the people I was spending the most time with were just fake friends who wanted something from me. And that hurt, immensely. Not only because of that alone, but the entire cluster of abuse and manipulation I have endured in my time so far. Why? Why must it occur, when I only go about with the purest of intentions and I am ever so clear about them?

I don’t seek to hurt or take advantage of others, so why must it be done to me? To be completely honest, by the weekend I hit a breaking point. I couldn’t deal with all the thoughts racing through my mind, and all the hypothetical questions, that, for the life of me, I hadn’t the clue of the answer to. I had a really intense panic attack, and this really did freak me out, because I haven’t had one in ages — I just know how to calm myself down before reaching that point. But this time I didn’t, and all the tears came running down. I hurled myself together and rocked back and forth with my head buried into my upended knees, and wanted to die, or at least that was the thought initially. Then I realized, ‘’No, I don’t want to die. I just don’t know who to open up to anymore and it kills.’’ I kind of want to stay in isolation forever, just to keep my heart and my dwellings safe.

May — The past week or so has been an absolute whirlwind for me to say the least. Firstly, my sleep cycle has been FUCKED, but I will return it back to the way it is supposed to soon enough, hopefully. I believe it started out really well, actually. Hypomania is back and here to stay for some time I feel. I caught up with my good mate Zac again, finally, and had a really good time hanging out with him and conversing with someone of like mind again. And I saw Michael again, which was good too. He is starting to lose touch with himself currently, though. I got my waist tattooed with a butterfly, symbolizing metamorphosis, funnily enough — in the bedroom that I had once overdosed in, one month shy of a year ago. What a time to be alive, more than ever, as I am meditating on the buzzing (and occasional DRILLING for lack of better word to describe the feeling, reminding me once again I really do need to get a bit more meat on the bone) and the cloudy melodies of the Cranberries playing in the background.

After all, you must endure some pain and discomfort to achieve something truly beautiful, like growth — and a butterfly on the skin as a forever reminder.