2008-08-20, 12:42 a.m.

i will bottle this like a scent and wear it on my collarbones

It's been a while since I've come here, so preoccupied with my own life and the small, day-to-day things that have consumed me up until now, until this moment. I need to be here. I am not happy, you know, not really, not fully. I sit in my room late at night, unable to sleep, listening to the wind pushing leaves together into a rush of activity that, for all its frenzy, is calm and soothing. I look around at everything here, I see bits and pieces and I don't know what they're supposed to create, how they're supposed to come together to tell me who I am. I am stuck, parts of me are stretching out and up and forward, and parts of me are being held back by something I can't see; I can't see it yet.

I know I need to figure this out.

There are moments that free me, that lift me out of all of this and make me realize how much more there is that I'm missing. Such a moment happened recently, hit me in the very middle of my chest, hard, pressing in until I thought I would never breathe again. I wanted to cling to that fraction of my life, separate it from everything else and place it somewhere safe so no one would ever be able to touch it, to ruin it. But, like all the best moments it fell away, left me all too quickly with an insatiable craving that I still can't shake.

I am going through withdrawal, I am fractured, I am listless and frozen and perpetually waiting. I can see the future, but the only bridge to get there is burning.