Journal: 1/12/08

I don't know who I am.  A year ago I would have listed off half a dozen words and then pointed to them, there, lingering on the page.  "That's me," I would have said, "and you sure as hell better get used to it!"  The second set of words still lingers in my mouth whenever I get fed up with those who want me to change.  But I can no longer voice the first set.  Before this year, I thought of myself as the soul-less one.  The one who didn't fall, couldn't fall, the one who could keep everyone away.  I'm intimidating, someone told me last night.  People know that if they f**k with me, they'll regret it.  I've cultivated that reputation for the last few years. 

 

I can't trust.  I mean, I can.  But there are guidelines and rules to be followed even there.  For all I say that I hate math because of how 'structured' it is, I live for structure.  My every word and movement is defined by something that was laid out the day before, the week before, the month before.  Nothing I do is ever done without too much consideration.  I plot more than I act upon any subject.  Half the plans in my mind are uncompleted, some will remain that way for the rest of eternity. 

 

There's always been a part of me that loved spy books.  If I couldn't have gotten away with it, I would have planted half a dozen microphones and cameras in various people's houses, just to know what was going on.  I realize now why I have always had this fascination.  My entire high school, and the majority of my middle school, career have been based upon the idea that to trust is to die.  I've hidden everything, lied about everything, watched people stab eachother in the back without a blink.  I've stabbed people, knowing the results.  And I've listened to peoples' lies, remembered them, and then used them as leverage.  Call me anything, any word would describe me.  B***h is the most common one.  W***e, s**t, sneak, tease.  I use everything in my arsenal to get what I want, even my flirtatious glances aren't without cause.

 

Oh, how I wish my friends would realize it.  But at the same time, I'm glad they won't.  I'm not one to let past grievances lie.  And I remember everything.  When are they going to figure it out?  Every lie they spout, every insult they whisper into someone's ear always gets back to me.  I am the center hull of the rumor machine in my group.  I seem so jaded to them, to a point where nothing will ever surprise me.  So they chatter and yatter on into my sympathetic ear, and I remember.  I remember every worthless word that spills from their mind into mine, and I pray that I'll never have to use these truths against them.

 

I push people away.  Too much, too little, its all the same.  I don't let people get close.  Sure, my friends think we're all good.  They think they know who I am, know the secrets behind the brick walls of my mind - things I can't even remember until they become necessary.  But do they understand what I hear?  That when my mind is formulating a plan or even a poem, its repetitive lines run like echoes within my brain?  Three or four of them at once is enough to drive any person to insanity.  I get to five and I have to start writing, typing, as fast as I can.  Or else they just stick in there, and I suffer.

 

I can back from my freshman summer ready to face sophmore year.  I came back from sophmore year with the knowledge that flirting and teasing can get me nearly anything.  Junior summer, Senior summer...so close, so far, so soon, so long ago.  What did I learn?  I don't know, I can't remember, I haven't learned anything yet.  I learned to manipulate during junior year.  I learned to rip peoples' hearts apart so gracefully that even they don't realize the slow tear.  I have a talent for manipulation.  Sad truth, isn't it?  That my words and actions can force someone to do something they wouldn't consider before.  Talent, gift, its all the same.  Yet another facet of my personality that I've cultivated for years.

 

But now I'm forced to pause and wonder.  I'm chasing away a friend, but do I want to do it?  I'm recording names and lies, but do my fingers quiver on the pen?  My experiance begs to differ, but I am coming upon the sudden feelings that all is not as horrible, as unbearable, in my world as I once suspected.  I suddenly feel myself longing for the simple things in life.  I want to joke, to laugh, to dance, with someone who is neither foe nor competition.  Because those are the only two real categories in my mind. 

 

Am I crazy?  Of course.  Mentally unstable is what people like me are known as.  But am I ready to give up my ways, and become normal?  Only time will tell.  Only time will tell.