Britney

I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

I am no longer part of my own life. I am a passive rider in every moment, moving from tableau to tableau with nothing but instinct in mind. I am awful at writing my diaries on time. I’ve trashed my poetry. My only company consists of the men of the trenches of my brain I am only tethered to by a kind of Stockholm syndrome, the faint ghost of my mother that does nothing but highlight the absence of being cared for and my own past missteps that I can do nothing but awkwardly pave over—but I still trip over the bumps. My broken bone, the fine line between my flight and the bunker that has morphed into a Labyrinth. Quick mental minutes of moments with the boy I like (liked? Like. It’s hard to tell where I stand in the haze) where I feel nothing but useless, the crumpled housewife in the damp kitchen corner. I don’t respond to messages, even the ones I want to. I went through a few days of extreme energy and working on all of my projects and filling out my Common App but none of those exist in this slow muddle of unreality.

There is no reason for anyone else to understand the full extent of why I feel this way, especially if our acquaintance has only been through my writing. But I have begun to enter one of the most extreme disconnects of my life and it is a wonder that I did not predict this exact fall at the start of my summer. It always happens. I have no relief.

I scream, “I don’t want to die! I just want to be happy!” into my empty apartment. I don’t know where my grandmother is. I never do. ♦