Hold Still

The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.

I don't want to hurt you or anybody so please forget about me. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.

My room is so quiet and empty it hurts.

There used to be days that I thought I was okay, or at least that I was going to be. We'd be hanging out somewhere and everything would just fit right and I would think 'it will be okay if it can just be like this forever' but of course nothing can ever stay just how it is forever.

There are so many things that I want so badly to tell you but I just can't.

You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons.

And I want to tell you about everything but I can't because I couldn't stand for you to have that look on your face all the time. I just need you to look at me and think that I'm normal. I just really need that from you.

It was the moment I realized what music can do to people, how it can make you hurt and feel so good all at once.

dear today, i spend all of you pretending i'm okay when i'm not, pretending i'm happy when i'm not, pretending about everything to everyone.

...I think that people who make judgements about other people they don't even know are shallow, and people who start rumors are shallow, and I really don't care what shallow people say about me.

I am a girl ready to explode into nothing.

This is what I want so don't be sad.

Here's how I feel: People take one another for granted. Like, I'd just hang out with Ingrid in all these random places--in her room or at school or just on a sidewalk somewhere. And the whole time we'd tell eachother things, just say our thoughts outloud. Maybe that would have been boring to some people, but it was never boring to us. I never realized what a big deal that was. How amazing it is to find someone who wants to hear about all the things that go on in your head. You just think that things will stay the way they are. You never look up, in a moment that feels like every other moment of your life, and think, "Soon this will be over." But I understand more now. About how life works.

Each time a breeze starts, I feel the air all the way through me.

How does your life move forward, when all you want to do is hold still.

How it's so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she's made me. She got to disappear completely and I feel like I'm about to combust.

Sometimes inspiration strikes; other times you have to hunt it down.

My best friend is dead, and I could have saved her. It’s so wrong so completely and painfully wrong, that I walked through my front door tonight smiling.

I’ll make a swing so I can reach the places I can’t reach yet.

That's what friends do: they notice things. They're there for each other. They see what parents don't.

I was such a quiet kid, so shy and calm and in my own head. Of course I knew about being sad. Maybe that's the reason I saved all the things I thought were pretty.

I sleep through the next day. Each time I go to the bathroom, I try not to look in the mirror. Once, I catch my reflection: it looks like I’ve been punched in both eyes. I can’t talk about the day that follows that.

The first time she carved something into her skin, she used the sharp tip of an X-Acto knife. She lifted up her shirt to show me after the cuts had scabbed over. She had scrawled F*** YOU on her stomach. I stood quiet for a moment, feeling the breath get knocked out of me. I should have grabbed her arm and taken her straight to the nurse's office, into that small room with two cots covered in paper sheets and the sweet, stale medicinal smell. I should have lifted Ingrid's shirt to show the cuts. Look, I would've said to the nurse at her little desk, eyeglasses perched on her pointed nose. Help her. Instead, I reached my hand out and traced the words. The cuts were shallow, so the scabs only stood out a little bit. They were rough and brown. I knew that a lot of girls at our school cut themselves. They wore their long sleeves pulled down past their wrists and made slits for their thumbs so that the scars on their arms wouldn't show. I wanted to ask Ingrid if it hurt to do that to herself, but I felt stupid, like I must have been missing something, so what I said was, F*** you too, b****. Ingrid giggled, and I tried to ignore the feeling that something good between us was changing.

Maybe there is no right thing to say. Maybe the right thing is just a myth, not really out there at all.

I wish I knew why she never told me any of this. Maybe she thought I wouldn't be able to handle it, that I was too sheltered or too innocent or something. If she had told me why she cut herself all the time, or that it was the pills that made her act so spaced out, or that she was even on pills, or even saw doctors, or any of it, I would have done my best to help her. I'm not saying I'm a superhero. I'm not saying I would have just swooped down and saved her. I'm just saying the only reason everything was a waste was that she made it a waste. That whole time, back when I was just a normal kid in high school, living out my normal life, I really thought everything mattered.

It isn't the happy ending Ingrid and I had dreamed up, but it's all a part of what I'm working through. The way life changes. The way people and things disappear. Then appear, unexpectedly, and hold you close.

Crushes are supposed to be fun, aren't they? They definitely aren't supposed to be so torturous.

I sort through the letters and pull out what I need for the beginning. They snap easily into place. And even though I thought I would need every letter, I finish the first sentence and realize that it’s all I have left to say. I MISS YOU.

I don't want to hurt you or anybody s just please forget about e. Just try. Find yourself a better friend.I never laughed as hard as I laughed with you but now not even the laughing feels good.