this is the place where time reverses
2005-08-27 || 2:24 p.m.

Staying in bed and keeping my eyes closed is the closest thing to my reality I can find. I like nothing more than to be in bed for so many hours that my head feels stuffy and I drift in and out of sleep knowing that I have slept for so long that I could overdose if I get anymore. I like the light coming in around my stupid 1970�s blanket and the odd snippets of next door�s conversation. I like to shift position because I�ve stayed in bed so long I am uncomfortable. I like getting up knowing that the day is virtually over and I have done nothing. I like the feeling that my eyes are so heavy, my lids just want to close constantly and then I like when I close them and I get that strange mixture of light black which if you concentrate for long enough seems to turn into particles kind of bouncing in space.

And all I want to do is lay down and close my eyes because that is the only place where anything is even halfway approaching what I want it to be.

And when I got up this morning I just wanted to die. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe I just say that �I want to die� kind of like a refrain because I�m not totally sure that I actually mean it. I think maybe I say it because I want to say something else but I don�t know how to. It�s something deeper than that. Its like there is something deep at my core that I want to hurt. It�s like the real bit of me is when you split a pip open and there is like that little tiny germ. Actually I was grasping around for a way to describe this earlier and it is like I am that tiny little piece of aniseed in an old fashioned gob stopper. This giant, hard, not too fine tasting outer shell that is hardly worth bothering with and then � oh my! A piece of aniseed, so small it gets stuck between your teeth. That�s me. Just kind of a huge disappointment.

And I am at the point, yet again, where I am a few chapters from the end but I just cannot finish. I cannot even pick up the book. It�s like I can go so far and then all the walls crash down, the doors fly shut and I am mute, inanimate, behind my shell. So inanimate it�s untrue. I feel lacking in any personality whatsoever. I feel flat. I remember reading �A Passage to India� a long while back and there is this part when Forster is describing caves. I think its kind of like a slightly shit allusion to the mysterious possible �rape�. The whole book is kind of rascist in a product of it�s times way. But the caves are described something like one opening up after another, just as you think they are finished, there is more. I always found it kind of tasteless and I think that is why it stuck in my mind. But I thought of it today and I just imagined that I would be �wham! Shit a brick wall! Where�s the entrance? Oh, there is none. It�s nothing but flat red bricks, all exactly the same as the next. A smooth, constant superficial whole. No deviation, nothing to find.�

I feel like nothing at all. If there is anything at all, then it is so buried that by the time it was found it would have rotted away to nothingness anyway.

And so I tried watching The Hours but I did not get very far. I saw Virginia Woolf tie up her hair in a bun at the nape of her neck and I remembered having my hair like that once. Somewhere. In another time. Another place. Another person. I remember it vividly. I have remembered it for years. I�ve written about it so many times in stupid, different places. I remember looking from behind and noticing how my hair looked. I remember being able to see from my eyes and yet see all of me at the same time. Just like I did when I was three and watched the odd cine like film projected on my tall boy. So many times I have written about it. So many times I have tried to hold onto it but it always stays the same. It never changes. It�s more real than when I close my eyes. And of course the odd element. The feelings. The emotions. These kind of dreams or visions are always accompanied by yearnings that seem burnt into my very soul.

Which is odd for someone who says they are completely flat.

And I wish the books wouldn�t have gone like I wish the cutting wouldn�t have gone. To begin with I wrote on myself in marker pen. Across my stomach. My stomach is so smooth, so beautiful. I remember when Helen wanted to get her navel pierced and she asked if she could see what mine looked like and I lifted my top and she was obviously amazed and she blurted out what a lovely stomach I had. And it is strangely true. So I would write �Scum� across my stomach and I would walk about knowing I had this fun message on me. I would play with Rebecca, cook dinner, do my various assorted jobs but I would feel so much better. Then I started taking knives upstairs and hiding them under my bed. I would cut the messages in but knives don�t work too good so I started to buy razor blades. I moved from my stomach to my arms. I don�t know why. Maybe because I love my arms and the skin underneath is so soft. Razor blades would cut fine beautiful lines that left thin white scars. Safety razors were fun too because you have to hack and you could get jagged bits with flaps of skin and I would put long sleeved pyjamas on and go to bed and sleep with my arms burning and in the morning my clothes would be stuck to me and it would hurt like hell pulling them off and then all day long my arms would burn to remind me that I am scum. But it was a beautiful thing. It was mine. If my arms were cut and bleeding then I wasn�t having to be anything other than what I am. I was critique free. I was almost still a real person then.

And I remembered these strange roses. And I closed my eyes and remembered a kitchen garden. But I have never walked through a kitchen garden in my life. I think my mind makes pictures of all my fantasies and dreams. But some parts stand out so clear that they are clearer and more real than the mould on my walls. They are like someone focused the lens properly whereas usual reality is always somewhat blurred.

And I want to sleep more but I think I should have a bath.

Ps Amber - if you still read my diary, I tried to leave you a note, then I tried to email you. I am really happy for you. I just wanted to let you know.