Tuesday 28 September 2004

walk on

i'm in my free again - first thing in the morning. i've started skipping assembly with some other girls in my class and i've realised that it makes the day go by a little faster and a little easier. i hope the day goes by fast today.
anthony left late last night - again. how many times am i going to hear myself say that? quite a few, i bet.
i didn't break down into hysterics like i did last time, but i was still sad - very sad. he's home on friday though, so i suppose it's not that bad. still - four days.
i spoke to 'beau' again. he rang me on sunday while i was with anthony and some friends, and i had to just talk down the phone as though i was speaking to my friend daniel. he knows the code for ringing me. he rings once, then if i can talk to him i ring him once, and then he rings me back. i was fuming with him. but anthony didn't seem to notice.
i rang him later to let him know how angry i was. he said he was sorry - he said he was thinking about me so he rang me like i told him - i asked him what he was thinking - he was wondering why i came round on thursday.
i told him i had a lapse in morals, but that they were back to their regular standards now - he said he was offended, he didn't realise that to see him i had to undergo a slip in my principles - i laughed - i asked him if that wasn't really what he had to do too. and he said nothing. he's good at saying nothing when it really matters.
after a while he told me not to kid myself - we'll always come back to each other somehow, in some strange way, whether we liked it or not.
i told him it would have to stop - he said it would - when he leaves for florida. i started to cry. he's leaving next year, when he gets his irish passport, to be with monique.
there's something i've never really understood about 'beau' and i. since we started being 'intimate' last july we've never really been happy in our relationships. last summer he was on the verge of a break up with monique, as was i with jordan, only i never really knew that at the time. we both wanted to be with each other then but neither of us could hurt the other party.
when he was single in october, and when i was just days away from being similarly so, we comforted each other with our lust for one another. thinking back, i can't think of a better method of comfort than that. i wanted him then, when all he wanted was to rebuild his relationship with monique.
and then in february when monique was long gone from 'beau's' life, and i was still hovering between relatioships, we had a chance to make something. he wanted to, he made several efforts to win me over - but 'hannah's boyfriend' was such a tough category to win back then. so many contenders, and 'beau' didn't make the cut.
and then there's this summer. monique has gone to florida now but 'beau' is pining for her, while i feel i'm dying inside with my relatioship with anthony. i was ready to give everything up and be with him, but he couldn't - monique was still on his mind.
so much sea-sawing, so many changed minds and unsettled claims. the timing is never right.
what i meant to say before all this drivel came out, was that i've never understood why we've never just opted for the easy way out: dropping monique, jordan, anthony, whoever, and simply starting a relationship with each other, finally.
but i suppose things are never really that simple.

Friday 24 September 2004

with or without you

Anthony’s picking me up this afternoon, in about an hour or so. I think it’ll be weird speaking to him again – I feel as though he’s a different person now that I’ve found out that thing. I wish I knew why he did it. I could never ask him though. No matter how comfortable we are with each other, that would just be the most awkward thing ever. I texted ‘Beau’ last night, hinting for an invitation for me to come back to his place. I was only there for a minute or two though. I stood outside his door and he asked me to come inside – I looked at what was draped around his neck – those fucking golden boxing gloves. I just thought to myself – you fool. I mean for fucks sake, just that very same day I had been writing about how I hated being his sure thing. So, hours after saying that I go round there with the full intention of walking in and taking my clothes off for him again.I was ready – I had my white silk thong on, my white silk matching bra, shaved legs – everything was ready for him. And then I saw that fucking necklace and remembered how horrible it would feel a few days after the deed – the crime – the guilty venture. The awful words floating around my mind for weeks after – such a contemptible, shameful girl.He asked me to come in – I said no – he asked me why – I asked him what we were – he didn’t understand – I asked him if we were friends – and he said we were more than that – I asked him if we were a secret couple – and he said no – I asked him if I was his fuck buddy – he said nothing. I told him the only reason I kept coming back was because he made me feel special – he said it was the same for him – I called him a liar – he looked at me – I told him to ring me the next time he though about me – he said he’d be ringing me every minute – I laughed.I told him to be honest – his expression changed – we said goodnight – I walked away.I laughed and cried the whole way home.

Thursday 23 September 2004

mister christopher 2

i'm really seriously impressed with myself and how much work i've produced this week.
i'm going to make sure i don't fall behind in any more subjects so that i can have time to catch up on others - god knows when that'll be though.
i'm in my free now - and yes i'm going to do some work for once. after i've finished writing on here and downloading music of course.
anthony drove me to school this morning and he's picking me up at 3:00 so i don't have to go to English this afternoon. YEY!
his week off has flown by - he's at court on monday for his drink driving thing and then he's leaving. but he'll probably be home again next friday.
i hate it when he's not here for me cuddle and hold on to and make me feel safe. i just feel empty.
i used to think i felt so empty becasue of him - but i think i was wrong. now i think that maybe he's the only reason i'm not just a hollow shell that could crack any second.
i do love him.
i wish i could tell him about 'Beau'. i feel so guilty about it now - it's tearing my insides out every time i think back to those mistakes. they really were mistakes - big ones. i bet i'd do again though if the clocks turned back to that pivotal moment when he started crying in his bathroom.
what if i hadn't went back there with him? what if i hadn't cleaned the blood off his face? what if i hadn't held his head against my shoulder when he started to cry? and what if i hadn't been so fucking gullible.
what eighteen year old man starts to cry over a black eye? not a fucking amateur boxer with golden boxing gloves hanging round his neck - who was in more fights when we were younger than i could count on both hands.
hands all over each other before we realised what we were doing. we knew exactly what it would feel like - exactly how it would be in a few weeks; a few days even. that heavy tonne weight of guilt in the pits of our stomachs.
it happened anyway. tears, lies, lust, pain and pure desperation all mixed together. all that emotion and yet he was playing naked guitar for me moments later.
it was all just a cleverly planned setup to get me into his bed again.
ironically, jordan was the first person i really talked to about it. jordan, whose heart i broke just a year ago through the exact same act, with the very same person.
he told i was just one of those people who couldn't resist temptation. i tried to justify myself to him, tried to explain to him that i was tricked, but he told me that didn't matter. i still gave in.
so maybe i'm not as strong as other people. jordan's wrong though. i don't know why but i just know he's wrong. it's 'Beau'. he's the only person i have affairs with.
it's just so complicated. we've got so much history, but where did that all come from? what history is that exactly?
since i was nine i used to dream about marrying him when i was older. somehow i think we'll end up together somehow, someway. why else do we keep coming back to each other for more. but the timing's always wrong. maybe it won't be wrong forever though.
how do we know so much about each other? how can we tell exactly how the other is feeling all the time? how do we do that?
i wish, i really wish i knew. i don't want to be read like a book by him anymore. i want to become a mystery to him. i don't want to be his sure thing anymore, and i don't want him to offer himself to me as though he's my sure thing.
i hope that maybe one day we'll be able to see each other across a crowded room and think... good times.
not for a long time yet though.

Tuesday 21 September 2004

the couch

i'm in my free again, while anthony's probably still lying in my bed. i suppose today can't be too bad - i've only got english and history and then triple golf this afternoon. he's picking me up again too, which i like.
i'm starting to get my head above water with work now, but it's still hard. it feels as though everyone around me is sucking the life out of me like leeches with huge appetites. and now that i'm finally giving them something they want more and more and more.
(sigh)
hopefully the day will pass quickly and i'll get home in no time - to sit down and do about 3 hours of geogrpahy coursework.
i had a dream that i travelled to a place where all the people were made out of icing last night.

Monday 20 September 2004

ready to wear

It’s just lunch now, had german, biology, chemistry and maths this morning, and I’ve got French and geography coursework to hand in this afternoon – that I’ve finished though.

I had a look at my friend’s diary this morning, and it made me kind of sad. He’d posted all the pictures of their visit to Lancaster uni, and it made me think about things. I don’t think i’ll ever have fun like that with them again.

The thing that kept our friendship so alive was the fact that we had nothing to be scared or afraid or shy of. Together, we could say, think, act like we wanted without giving a damn if anybody cared. Well, that’s what it felt like for me.

They’re the only real friends I think I’ve ever had. Maybe that’s why it feels so bad that we hardly ever speak or see each other. And I would pick up the phone this second if I could think of a single thing I could think of to say. I’ve been left out of the loop for such a long time.

I hope they’re all still in there, I suppose. Actually that’s a total lie. Why, if they can still have fun together, can’t I be included in any of it?

This all probably sounds immature, but I can’t help but miss the friendships I had with them all and be sad by the fact that I know they’ll never be same again.

(sigh), off to some French homework.

Friday 17 September 2004

a big, red, bubbling scab

I'm in history and since i've got nothing better to do really, i thought i'd come on here, again.
i've wanted to write an entry about my relationship with my mother for a while, and keep forgetting somehow or i keep getting something else to inspire an entry.
pretty much ever since i started seeing jordan i've been distanced from my mother, as though we both feel i'm too grown up to climb into her bed every morning for a cuddle, or to sit beside her on the green recliner while she reads a book and plays with my hair.
and i never talk to her about my problems anymore, as though by telling her the details of my life i'd be setting myself up for a mass interrogation. and i can't really tell her anything anyway, without having to tell a dozen lies to come out with one line of truth.
but i wish i didn't have to hide things from her. i wish i could tell her the problems me and anthony have and the reasons we argue. i wish i could be honest with her and tell her how much i hate this school and how much i've hated it for the past year - and how i'm failing at it - for the first time in my life.
i wish i could just try and begin to describe this feeling i get of emptiness, and the razor-sharp knife edge i feel running across every pore on my body, tinged with acid, burning my skin until i'm nothing more than a red, bubbling scab.
but i can't, and i won't.
this week though, when i've been coughing and sneezing and shivering and crying, i've been able to cuddle up to her and give her huge hugs and feel like i'm still her little girl deep down, just hidden beneath layers upon layers of lies.
it's this time of year that we went and collected those crunchy brown leaves and placed them on a collage for her to keep forever. that was about nine years ago though.
sixteen soon. there was a time when i couldn't wait to be sixteen. now it's just another year further away from a time when i was able to do whatever i wanted and not be judged, or compared. it's strange but i feel as though i belong in neverland (no, not michael jackson's place) where i could have stayed young forever and would never have had to grow up and face all this reality.
it's all so ugly and real.

an unbreakable wall of unbeatable things

i thought i'd write a quick entry before i go to physics. i got a phone call from my friend dan last night at about 2 in the morning. when i woke up this morning i thought it was a dream but when i checked my phone he had in fact rang me. i wonder what for?
i know they're all at lancaster uni for their visit thing, so maybe they're just being rebellious and staying up all night.
i feel as though they're a hundred miles away from where i am, and between us are tornados, storms, whirlwinds and sand storms: an unbreakable wall of unbeatable things.
or maybe it's just that none of us are really making the effort.

always and forever

Eurgggh, my back’s killing and my stomach’s acting like a washing machine on turbo cycle. Cannot be arsed with English and history this afternoon, and I’ve got school pictures sometime soon.

I HATE school pictures. Ever since secondary school my mother has never seen any of my school pictures – I just send them back and say I definitely don’t want one. I did that last year, but my parents ended up going ape shit because they wanted to send a picture of me in my new uniform at my new school to everyone they knew. They probably just wanted to show off.

Anthony’s home tonight, at about tenish. He’s been acting different lately though – no longer ringing me every single spare minute he gets, no mushy text messages. When I talk to him on a night time, he says nothing and leaves me to do all the talking. And then when the conversation runs out he says he’s busy and has to go.

But we never used to run out of conversation. There is always something to talk about – it just needs both parties to make the effort.

And he’s just not.

And I don’t know why.

I can speculate though. A new girl on the scene down there? His mind wandering to the notion of singledom? Or maybe he’s just bored of me, like a repeat of last year and all the drama that came from that. Christ I hope not.
Is my quirkiness no longer quirky? My cuteness no longer cute? Has my pretty smile been erased from his memory?

I guess we’ll find out, as little pieces of me are torn away with every disappointment, every let-down, every broken promise and every lie.

Don’t make me go through that again, Anthony.

Tuesday 14 September 2004

queen jane approximately

i'm feeling pretty sorry for myself for no reason in particular really. i'm just cold and coughy and smelly. and sad for some reason.
i went through all of anthony's old letters before - i don't really know why. it felt funny reading them; everything's so different now. i remember back in january and february i used to be sort of scared of him.
at the beginning i was just stringing him along with all the rest of the lads i had on the go. and he put so much effort into winning me over. i felt so glamorous back then - so many boys wanting a piece of me.
in a letter he sent me near valentines day he said he knew it had only been a month, but he knew he'd never felt this way about anyone before. and that was when me and jordan were giving it one last try - which fell through, and i ended up falling into anthony's arms.
it's not like that anymore though. i feel like i'm constantly falling and he's hardly ever there to catch me before i reach the ground. he tries so hard though, does so much for me and i repay him by needing him more and more.
he'll end up leaving me in the end like jordan did. and then who'll be there to catch me?
i think i'm going to become good friends with the cold, wet tarmac.

Monday 13 September 2004

fragile

I’m in geography now – should be doing work but I forgot my folder so I can’t.

Anthony left again last night – and I was fine until we were lying together in my bed five minutes before he was supposed to leave. I burst into tears – unable to speak, hardly able to breathe, and he just held me and told me everything would be alright. But he’s lying – nothing’s been right for such a long time now that I can’t see how it could ever be right again.

I had a temperature, so I wrapped up in about four jumpers two pairs of pyjama pants and three pairs of socks, and went out to the car with him. I sat there crying for even longer, still unable to speak. He kept saying that he’d be home in five days, and that’s all very well – but he’ll be leaving me again in another eleven days. No matter how many times he comes home and no matter how long he’d home for – I’ll always be left somehow.

He told me to stop being so weak and be strong for once – but I can’t – I’ve tried and I can’t. He said he loved me and that he’d always take care of me.

“You’re so fragile, Hannah, I’m worried you'll break if I ever do the wrong thing and end up hurting you.”

Why does he keep leaving me then? I can't take much more of being abandoned every Sunday night only to wake up to the cruel reality of aloneness the next morning.

Thursday 9 September 2004

spoons

i'm in the schroder suite again, avoiding work.
i did end up speaking to anthony last night late on. the england match had been on though so he was pissed to the extent of babbling nonsense about spoons and the Independant Newspaper.
i spent about an hour and a half trying to convince him that sleeping on the streets was not a good idea and that i couldn't come and see him because i was in washington, and he was in portsmouth, and there's god knows how many hundred miles between the two.
he wouldn't believe me though.
god knows how or where he is today. probably locked up for assaulting anyone who tried to move him from his little patch of pavement. i honestly don't care how he is today. he said so many hurtful things about me; he was on the phone to my mother for ten minutes explaining to her how selfish, uncaring, hollow a person i am.
i hope he did sleep on the streets - i hope he nearly froze to death.

breaking the girl

i'm sorting of writing again today because of something i sort of picked up on.
since i went back to school i've become even more of a recluse than i was before - barely talking to anyone at all - only speaking when spoken to. it just feels like such a huge task to make conversation with people now, especially people who just laugh and scream and shout all through break and luchtime.
now i just avoid all that and take myself to the library to read or just sit and think in silence. i know it's not sociable. i even went to the extent this luchtime of walking all the way over to the far edge of the hockey pitch just to get some peace and quiet to sit and read.
i feel bad because there's one girl who's always been nice and always makes an effort to talk to me. it's like i'm being rude to her though, when i don't make the same effort back and finish our conversations early. it's as though i just can't speak though.
this morning in regestration i sat for twenty five minutes in a class room full of people before anyone spoke to me, and it was her - just asking me how i was. and when i replied my voice came out like a whisper - like it wasn't used to being used for conversation with any of these girls. it's not, i guess.
i do a lot of smiling - as though a smile can make do as a 'hey' or a 'thanks' or a 'yeah'. it doesn't make do though. not nearly enough.
there's just so many holes in me that everything i used to be is lying in puddles on the floor. and everyone keeps stepping in them - splashing little pieces of me away and away until they've gone so far they won't ever come back.
gone so far i'll never be me again.

Wednesday 8 September 2004

miss you when you're gone

i haven't spoken to anthony for almost twenty fours hours now. last night we had an argument about the way i think he talks to me - as though everything he says is the law and i must obey or else be punished. i'm sick of being treat like a child.
yeah, fine, whatever if he's six years older than me and thinks he knows best, that still doesn't give him the right to dictate to me what i can and can't do. for every question he asks me there's one correct answer and if i fail to give that he goes crazy.
he's been texting me all day and every message i receive is another guilty hole being drilled into me, leaving me full of holes and drained of energy.
i think this is where it's going to end to be honest. i wish he'd just give up too sometimes. we would have been over a long time ago had he not been so persistent. i shouldn't have to feel this guilty about not feeling...
that's the thing. i don't really feel anything for him. it just feels comfortable to be with him whenever he's home, and that's it really.
i know it's stupid but i had a dream about him last night. i dreamt that he was an evil supervillain, and he kept coming after me. i ran away from him up a spiral staircase, and every step felt like i was lifting a thousand tonne weight. and he flew after me and caught me on the stairs, and punched me and kicked me and threw me around. and then finally he threw me off the stairs, leaving me to plummet towards the ground.
but someone saved me - a superhero. he held me in his arms and vowed to seek revenge upon anthony the evil supervillain.
yeah, i already know it's screwed up and i should probably seek medical help.

Monday 6 September 2004

seven years

i was sitting on the bus on the way to a history field trip this morning, and i got a blinding migraine. the whole journey i never talked to a single person, and not a single person talked to me.
perhaps i'm invisible again.
all i could hear the whole journey was everyone squealing and laughing and joking and having fun. they make a distinct noise - a jabbering, like they're saying "jabber" over and over and over and over again. every single person on that bus was jabbering away like one of those 'Jabberboxes' you used to be able to buy that made a 'jabber' noise when its neck bent forward. they used to drive me mad.
and while the bus drove happily on its way to Finchale Priory, i watched out the window as we drove past people, buildings, houses, farms, trees, hay bales. despite the stabbing pain that felt like a knife lodged diagonally through my skull, i managed to remember how it was this time of year back where i used to live.
i remember stepping out of the secret door at the far end of my back garden, and being faced with fields upon fields of new hay bales. i remember playing in those fields with my friends - pretending the scarecrow man was alive, games of hide and seeks behind all those hay bales, eating jam sandwiches in the shade. everything was golden and fresh and pure and new.
then when i was eight they built three new estates on all of that land.
i snapped out of my flash from the past and got off the bus to learn some history - yeah.
when i look back i wish that my seventh birthday was my last. nothing had ever been better than being seven years old with no responsibilty, no worries, no pressure. i had an unlimited supply of energy.
where did all that go?
everything was possible back then.
now all the future does is just loom ahead - another piece of coursework to ignore, another exam to fail.
and no one gives a shit.

Sunday 5 September 2004

just like a woman

why is it that i can sit and write on here for hours but can't even imagine the possibility of making an effort to clear the knee-high pile of coursework notes i NEED to look through.
it's like one of those office-type cartoons you see with an IN tray piled up to the ceiling, and a completely empty OUT tray. having said that though, the OUT tray isn't totally bare. my social life, my energy, my joy, my passion, my self-respect, even my dreams are in there. and it's as though they're what everyone is feeding off.
but everyone is so fucking hungry.
anthony left early this morning, leaving me once again to an empty bed. we went to a friend's house last night, and even though we've spent a lot of time there before last night i felt as though i was sitting in the corner watching grown-ups talk about grown-up things.
but the funny thing is, when i went back to school on thursday, while everyone was jabbering on about their amazing holidays, i felt old. i felt like a grown-up sitting in the corner watching children talk about juvenile things.
i don't fit in anywhere. it got so confusing, and so frustrating, to the point where i had to just walk out of the classroom at school and sit in the library for a while to calm myself down. and i had to walk out of sara's living room and sit in the bathroom for ten minutes to stop myself shaking.
when we got in last night anthony and i sat out in the garden with a bottle of wine and a few candles. i tried to explain it to him then but i just gave up in the end.
while i was smoking my cigarette, i noticed dark brown veins forming from the tip. i kept smoking it until the veins reached my fingers. i imagined these veins running through my whole body, like dirty blood: like i was dead, and yet my stale blood still managed to circulate around me.
even while anthony and i had sex later last night, i was still thinking about these brown veins running through me. every thrust was like the heartbeat pumping the brown blood through my veins.
i miss him already. only thirteen more days until he comes home again.

Friday 3 September 2004

kosovo

at school again in another IT suite. i'm wearing stockings today as a dare from anthony. it feels.... breezy.
still no word from any of my friends. i'm not contacting them until i hear from them. that could take a while though.
anthony's home tonight, and i'm looking forward to seeing him. he is, afterall practically the only person left in my life.
he could be going to kosovo in novemeber - for six months.
i'll die.

Thursday 2 September 2004

my work on the wall

i'm at school, once again, in the schroder suite. everything's pretty much the same and i haven't been grilled for not doing any work whatsoever yet. this is my free period and i haven't got any work to do with me - what a shame.
most of my friends don't go back until monday or tuesday, which is pretty unfair i think. i haven't spoken to my friends from my old school in weeks. i think they've pretty much forgotten about me. i never get invited to their trips and outings and parties anymore. maybe i should give up making the effort with them - it never seems to be returned.
me and D went and looked around our old school yesterday. it seemed so strange to be looking at my work still hanging on the walls a year after i left. i know things would be a lot different if i'd stayed there instead of running away. maybe i'd still be with jordan, myabe i'd still have friends, maybe i wouldn't be failing at school. maybe a lot of things would be the same.
but i didn't stay; instead, here i am sitting tapping away at one of the many many state of the art computers that durham high school for girls offers its students.
oh well, back to reality - and some work hopefully.

Wednesday 1 September 2004

warning sign

anthony left on monday night. school on thursday - tomorrow. oh god.
seven pieces of coursework not done, five of which are overdue.
my good friend D is home for a visit this week. we went to newcastle this morning and did the same thing we always do when he's home. we shopped, made fun of people, went to starbucks, went to the laing.
when we were sitting drinking coffee (non-fat decaf, i'm on a diet) he told me the main reason he came back was to make sure i'm ok.
he said he had a dream on saturday night, that we were sitting on a bridge together with our legs hanging over the edge. he said his legs almost touched the ground but mine were miles above the speeding cars below us.
he said we were talking about death and beauty, and he told me i was beautiful. i told him beauty fades away in the end, just like life does. he said i'd always be beautiful, and i said only if time held me here forever. then he said a train came over the bridge and he couldn't hear what i was saying over the noise, but he knew it was intense. i kissed him on the cheek and slid off the bridge.
the way my body hit the road just sounded like a doll being thrown on the ground by a child.
my head burst open like a watermelon.
i smiled over my coffee and said i'm not about to jump of a bridge, D. he said he knows me, he said he knows i'm too dramatic for my own good.
he asked me what i thought i was saying as the train passed by. i told him that we'll never be as beautiful as we are now. everyday another imperfection comes our way and makes us less and less beautiful. i told him beauty can be immortalised. i showed him a picture we'd just taken of ourselves on his phone and told him that if we died right now this was how we'd look forever.
he told me i'm only fifteen. and i'll grow more and more beautiful as i grow up. he said he thinks i've changed; i'm not his little friend anymore, and he doesn't know how to look at me. i told him it's because we've both grown up, and we're both just starting to realise it. he agreed.
he said when he looks in my eyes he nolonger sees excitement and life and love, just emptiness and sadness and big black pupils. he said he's not going to tell me he's worried about me because i'm a big girl now, but that when he comes home next time he wants me to be alive.
i love spending time with D.