have you ever looked in the mirror and found that, oddly enough, there is no one looking back at you?

i must admit, i haven't. though i would appreciate it, because right now she's staring back at me and it's a girl i don't know. i would scream and tell my mother there is a stranger in our house, but i just cannot find the words.

mum.

there is a stranger –

what is a stranger anyway?

i wish i wasn't afraid of heights because then i could just leap off the edge. but i can't. because depth is a scary thing. haven't you ever noticed how depth just sucks you in and plays with your reception of balance like it's an old ragged doll? just, toying around and confronting me with the thought that perhaps philosophers were right and we are just tiny human beings, left at the mercy of the turning of the earth. (careful, we might fall off.)

honestly, it's such a paradox. humans pretend to be bigger than the stars and when nature hits with such force that it leaves you out of breath we sit on a couch doing nothing because our little brains cannot comprehend.

comprehend. i have always liked that word. i don't think it likes me, though. why, i wonder. why would words not like us when we're the only living animals that can utter them futilely? or perhaps, that's just it.

the girl nods. i cannot decide whether she nods because she approves or because she thinks i'm nuts. either way, she still doesn't belong here.

there are people who take photographs of fat and of losing it, who talk of riding bikes and medicine and use words in such ways i'll never be able to (comprehend). there are people that imagine things and make it come true, like dreams and wishes and fairies and there are those people that take tiny parts of the world and put it in a frame. i wish i could take that leap and just fucking cry.

i haven't cried in ages – not since that time my dog almost died. black and white love painted on a heart that is too small to love it all. crying is for the weak, i know. good girls don't cry. foolishly brave people don't cry. take the leap, she says. i scoff at the girl. please. go and become someone. go and get a name, you nameless nothing.

i am nuts and i laugh at my own thoughts and the girl laughs back at me. then she stops and she looks as if she's wanting to take the leap. go and become of something, she thinks. i know she does, because i think it too.

sometimes, sometimes, when i'm not at the giving end, i morph into a selfish fish and pretend i own the sea. i empty the sea, scoop it dry with my fishing net and imagine myself being the only fish in the sea that feels this way. and since i am just a stupid, foolish, nameless animal that has made no distinction, words don't like me and i have yet to find a way to describe. because it has to be perfect, it always has to be perfect.

i am always at the giving end, never the receiving. so what i give, must be received perfectly. if not, there's a sign that says 'no speaking'. it used to be 'no smoking', but i already broke that rule. i tell people i smoke because i like it, but honestly i'm just waiting until i turn into smoke myself and be consumed by others. it would be so fucking lovely.

perhaps i'm just scared of depth because i don't know what's down there. i keep trying to tell myself it's because i can't lose control, but knowing nothing is actually far worse. because –

fuck,

i don't know.

i know i'm just ordinary. that's okay, i'm fine being ordinary. i know i like to write about sad things, because honestly, my head is an upside down tragedy. i'm the queen of drama and i think i like being me. i am fine. i am a rollercoaster that doesn't go too high, because i'm afraid of depths. i go too fast and you can't catch me and you don't see me.

i know one day it will all go wrong. perhaps i'll go and rearrange the form of my skin again. perhaps i'll turn out to be a vicious murderer and take a life. perhaps i'll take charge and play for God and do it myself. or, maybe, perhaps, i'll sit in that corner, right over there and cry. perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps.

and one day i will be on the news and people will sit on their couch and listen while chewing their cows. i'll be on the news with headlines scrolling across the screen, the one that people find so annoying, and perhaps days later they will still talk about me because i'm the girl that choked on words.


P.S. no, there is no happy ending and it's a work in process – just like me. i don't understand fuck of what i'm saying and you probably won't either but that's okay. perhaps perhaps perhaps. perhaps the girl in the mirror will make way for someone i recognise. or perhaps not and i'll just go on having an imaginary friend. fuck no, don't pity me. i am not lonely. pity the living, someone once said.

perhaps i will.

i make no sense, i know. i am nuts.